


In Living Memory

by SpaceWaffleHouseTM



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - World War I, American Civil War, American Revolution, An EXCESS of minor character death, Angst, Angst with a ridiculously happy ending, Blow Jobs, Characters are severely depressed, Dry Humping, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Historical Inaccuracies Aplenty, Immortals, M/M, Masked Dancing, Masturbation, Mention of suicide attempts, Mutual Pining, Old Hollywood Domesticity, Oral Sex, Rey is a bad ass, Soft Ben Solo, Suicidal Thoughts in the first few chapters, Thousand Year Slow Burn, World War II, age of exploration, bed sharing, frequent reunions, masquerades, sword fights, the smut has arrived
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2019-09-05
Packaged: 2019-09-06 08:10:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 28
Words: 197,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16828600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceWaffleHouseTM/pseuds/SpaceWaffleHouseTM
Summary: Her fingers hovered gently over the steel blade of her old sword, rusted over by the passage of time, and yet familiar to her all the same. “You kept it?”“I kept meaning to give it back to you, but we were always so fleeting... just two ships passing in the night.”“It’s been a long night,” she joked, then they both let out noises somewhere between sobs and laughter as they looked over the room, which was full of the various artifacts that they’d collected. Centuries worth of countless possessions filled the room, covered the shelves, and hung from the walls.“This is every piece of the story we’ve written,” Ben told her, walking around to her other side as he lifted a framed photo of them outside of her apartment in 1922, and looked at it closely. “The good...” He gestured to the photo, then he set it down, and moved on to the plague mask resting on the table nearby. “The bad...” His gaze fell next on the candlestick, which had rested on a mantle piece in a French castle that had long since fallen to ashes. “And everything in between.”--Ben and Rey are rendered immortal after being struck by lightning at the precise same moment, and keep running into one another as the centuries drag on.





	1. Prologue: England, 908 CE

**Author's Note:**

> WELL HERE GOES. This is going to be a journey folks, but I'm really excited so strap in, buckle up, and get comfy. Hopefully this concept works out as well as it does in my head. And I should note to mind the tags, these characters are super super depressed for like the first ten chapters of this fic... I get really into their heads. But nothing is ever graphically described, so hopefully that'll make it a little less severe.

The most important changes in a person’s life often happen within a split second. One quick fall, one misstep, one spoken word, all one thing, or a culmination of things that build tension until suddenly it snaps, and nothing is ever the same again. 

People tend to move on from life changing events, or perhaps they don’t and they simply remain in a state of shock until their dying days. Either way, they are never the same as they were before. That person effectively becomes dead, and a new one takes their place. As long as human beings have had souls, as long as they’ve been around, this has been the way of things. 

Change is and was a constant in life, and so was death, or at least, it was supposed to be. 

There were only two exceptions to death’s merciless hand in all of history, and they both happened at exactly the same moment. In a small coastal town—Jakku was its name, she vaguely remembered— a young woman was walking outside toward a well, intent on the simple task of fetching water for her family. She raised a hand to shield her eyes against the rain as she held up her skirts with the other, flinching against the sound of loudly booming thunder as she walked out toward the well.

Pushing her fear aside, the woman continued trudging through the mud until she could see the stone well ahead of her, watching as the wind caused a nearby tree to sway violently. A part of her wondered how she was still standing, and debated running immediately back to the safety of her home, but she still persevered, pushing onward through the wind and the rain. “You can do this, Rey,” she whispered to herself, trying desperately not to think about how loud the thunder was getting—how bright the lightning was. 

Rey finally reached the well a minute later, though by that point she was thoroughly soaked and was fairly certain she’d absolutely ruined the boots her mother had made her. She panted as she leaned against the edge of the well for a few seconds, but then quickly snapped out of her shocked state, remembering the lightning that was dancing in the sky. There wasn’t much the young woman knew of the bright light, but she was fairly certain it was deadly. At least, that’s what she’d been told in stories from her father. Or had it been her mother? Her siblings? Maybe she was married and it had been her husband. Perhaps her children if she had them? She couldn’t remember. Time eroded them away into complete ghosts. . 

Without another moment’s hesitation, she reached for the rope that would pull the water bucket out of the well, and began to tug, pulling it up and up and up until the wood and iron bucket was in her hands. She freed it from its rope, then she began to trudge her way up the hill. 

Time immediately began to move in slow motion. In hindsight, Rey would realize she should’ve just gone back to the house, and waited out the storm to fetch water. Perhaps she could have spared herself immense, incomprehensible amounts of pain if she had, but she did not. Rey had gone to the well, and fetched the bucket of water. She had sealed her fate. 

If she had been paying attention to anything other than the way the rain was pouring down over her, she might have noticed how the hairs on her arm stood on end or the slight crackling sound in her ears, and it wouldn’t have helped her, but perhaps she would’ve understood better what was about to happen to her. She would’ve at least had a warning, and she wasn’t sure if it would have made a difference, but it wasn’t like she would ever find out. 

The storm intensified around her, the sound of it building to a crescendo between the pouring rain, the howling wind, and the near and distant thunder as she made the trek back to her home. She was almost there, she was so close, in fact, she could reach out and touch it, but she didn’t quite make it. Instead, she was greeted by the most brilliant, blinding white light she’d ever seen, and the most deafening boom she’d ever heard. 

The light enveloped her completely, and though it was only the smallest fraction of a second, it was comparable to the eternity that followed. The most intense pain she’d ever felt—up until then, at least— raced up and down her spine, and she wanted to scream, but she couldn’t move. Somehow, Rey had been frozen by that blinding light, and the light left her very quickly, but it did not take the pain with it. 

A vague part of her was aware that she was now falling to the ground as she lost control of her legs, and then more than ever she wanted to scream. She wanted to open her mouth and howl her pain to the sky, but she couldn’t move. All she could do was lay there as the pain got worse and worse, staring at the front of her home as she watched black spots fill into her vision, and she realized that in the last several seconds since she’d seen the blinding light, she hadn’t taken a single breath. 

Was this death? Was this that inevitability they all waited for and always seemed to meet far younger than they ought to? Rey couldn’t think. She couldn’t hear after the explosion that had filled her ears. She could only just see, and even her vision was being taken away black dot by black dot. Rey’s eyes slowly fell shut, and she prayed for peace, for death to take mercy on her as she was encompassed by its cold hand. 

This would later become the only memory she had of her mortal life. Her death. 

Thirty miles to the south, that same thunderstorm took out its wrath on a small farm, where a young man was riding a horse back home from a market, carrying a bag made of scratchy material on his back full of potatoes he’d obtained from a seller his family trusted. 

In hindsight, he wouldn’t remember them either. He wouldn’t remember if he had a son, a daughter, a mother or a father in the years to come. All he remembered was that he had something, some pull or attachment to people that filled his early memory with light. 

But in the present, he was just trying to make it home through the wretched rain and wind that howled around him, never mind the lightning that made him feel all the more anxious with each bolt that illuminated the sky. He couldn’t focus on that. 

His horse galloped through the woods, guiding him straight on toward his home, only he never quite made it. He couldn’t be sure what it was, but there was something about the millisecond before the blinding white light hit him where he got the most intense feeling of foreboding. Something bad was about to happen, but what—

Blinding light filled his vision, and immense, horrible pain flooded his body. It overwhelmed him so much so that he didn’t even feel it when he fell from his horse, he didn’t notice when his body hit the ground, and his bones broke from the impact. He was already far too gone to notice, even when his head impacted upon a rock when he hit the ground. 

As it had been with the woman, the man— _ Ben, _ some vague part of him remembered—wanted to scream, he wanted to yell his agony to the sky, to his horse that now galloped away in fright, to the woods around them, but he couldn’t move. Every time he even thought about moving, white hot pain rushed through his veins. Not that it mattered much anyway, since black spots were already killing his vision, filling it slowly until he lost consciousness. 

Just like the woman, this was also his last living memory, and it was the first thing he could remember of his life. His own death. 

Both of them didn’t know what had happened to them at first. All they knew was it was a miracle they’d survived what they did. Rey grimaced at the half full bucket of water that she’d dropped when the lightning had hit her, and Ben stared ahead through the forest where his horse must’ve run off without him in fright. At the same time, the two of them walked the remaining distance into their homes, each feeling quite off, quite different than they had before, but neither could place it. 

No, they didn’t notice it until years started to pass, and their reflections failed to change. Ben’s family members, whoever they were that he just couldn’t remember to save his life, all sported graying hair and wrinkled faces if they didn’t die out from disease. Ben never caught a disease, and he certainly never wrinkled. The same went for Rey. She never seemed to change, and yet everyone around her continued on like normal. 

They both lived in denial of what was happening to them and their families until their relatives started to slowly die off from their age. Two hearts broke in different places as the years passed, and they both slowly but surely found themselves alone. 

Ben was the first one to leave his home for good, setting off for another coastal town to find a way to make a new life there, and maybe eventually he’d meet the same fate as everyone else. He would die in the end and he would see his family. Everything would be alright after that. Surely it would. The world had already been cruel enough to him to make him watch while everyone he’d ever loved died, hadn’t it?

Rey didn’t leave her home. She continued living in that tiny little thing on a hill, looking after her family’s things like they’d be back any day now and perhaps they’d just gone off to attend business in another town. They’d come back to her. The universe couldn’t be that horrible, could it? 

They both stayed up late at night staring at ceilings or stars, and wondering why they couldn’t die. Both of them had agonized over their lives, both of them had cried over it, and shed enough tears to fill the ocean. They’d both tried their hand at ending it themselves since nature seemed too lazy to do it for them. It hadn’t worked and had only resulted in further misery, driving them both into immense, unbearable pain. 

Both of them would spend years, decades agonizing over what had caused it. Why was it only them who ever seemed unable to die? Why was there no one else out there like them? Why were they so… alone?

A century passed, more than, actually, without anything of import happening to them. It wasn’t until Ben suddenly made an impulsive decision to leave his new town that everything finally began to change again after being stagnant for so long. He took a horse from his new home, and left with only a few important things of his old life on his back, traveling northward to a settlement that lay on a peninsula, taking him on a path that would result in the biggest supernova of collisions that history had ever seen. 

The path that would bring one lonely person who could never die to another. The path that would bring Ben to Rey.


	2. England, 1012 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have never been more tired (thanks, finals week, you're a real bro) but oh well, I have a thing for that post chapter button. So here's this.

Ben had been traveling for days. It had been at least three since he had left the shelter—well, the town, village, more like—that he had been staying at for the last twenty five years, and he was tired. He’d been on the back of his horse almost nonstop, and if he didn’t slow down soon, he would drive the poor creature into the ground. 

Exhaustion was one of the things he tended to forget could be fatal. While he still desperately needed sleep, and would pass out after ten days if he refused to get any—he’d tried to see how long he could stay awake once, in his boredom—it never quite brought his heart to its long awaited stop.

Throughout the years, he wondered if he was just aging really, really slowly, and maybe he would eventually meet the same fate as everyone else, but he never managed to. No, every time Ben looked in the mirror, there wasn’t even a hint of new lines on his face. The last time he had aged he’d been somewhere in between his twentieth and thirtieth years, though he’d been fairly certain he was somewhere close to twenty five when the bright flash of light had hit him, and he’d fallen from a different horse than the one he rode at present. 

He’d been twenty five years of age or so then, and he looked twenty five years of age now, though he was fully aware it had been at least a century since he’d been hit. Ben remained unchanging, his body remained unchanging, as if suspended in the state it had been on the day he had become effectively unkillable. 

Ben knew he was immortal. That much was certain. When he was stabbed, it hurt like hell, and he bled like any other man could, but by the time he woke up if he passed out, the wound was completely healed. This always alarmed him each time it happened, but he’d started to grow used to it. A stab to the heart now felt like the prick of a thorn to him. 

He hadn’t feared death in a century because of this, and oftentimes, like it would later that day, it got him into trouble. Frequently, he forgot that people weren’t supposed to survive being stabbed or poisoned or executed in some graphic manner, which wasn’t good for a man who regularly managed to anger all of the wrong sorts of people. In all honesty, he should’ve known better, but more often than not, Ben did not care about the consequences. After all, perhaps one day he would finally meet his end at the hands of one of the many knives he had encountered. One day, he thought it was possible he would finally meet his death. 

As he wandered into this new village, he wondered if that might happen here. Jakku was a comically small size for a coastal settlement. He had been expecting something… well, different to say the least, though he was not sure just what it was. Despite being more than a century old, he had yet to do a lot of exploring, which was something he really ought to have considered trying, since people somewhat frequently pointed out his inability to age when they saw him. 

He reckoned he’d only gotten as far as he had by being such a recluse. That was the exact purpose for his decision to move, after all. He had heard of another village to the north by the name of Takodana. Rumor had it that it was even smaller than Jakku appeared to be, but when he looked at his surroundings, Ben became increasingly less sure of this fact. 

After a few minutes of riding through the central part of the village, watching people as they milled about, Ben heard the tell-tale sign from his stomach that he was hungry. It mystified him how he still felt hunger, and that had been yet another way he’d tried to find out if he could somehow manage to… well… but it had not been successful. No, he’d just writhed in misery for nearly two weeks until he couldn’t take it anymore, and he gave into the urge to eat, forging himself on the finest foods he’d ever tasted. He was open to admitting though, that he had only thought they’d tasted so wonderful due to his starvation. 

That was entirely possible. 

Still, he elected to listen to his stomach, slowly dismounting from his horse, and wandering around through the village square until he found a merchant’s cart that seemed relatively poorly guarded. A perfect target for stealing, truly, especially for a man who never carried money. Hell, he hardly carried anything with him. He’d let most of his things burn with his family when they’d died. If Ben was going to live forever, he couldn’t go around having a past like that. No, he had to forget them before it got too painful, so he’d killed his past, but he never forgot what it made him. 

The memory of that fatal—or rather, not at all fatal—lightning strike always stayed with him, though, no matter what he did. He would never be able to forget that memory as long as he lived, of that much he was certain, but other than that, Ben knew nothing. 

That strike always haunted his thoughts, and it always did so to the point where Ben would find himself horribly distracted in the midst of completing tasks mortals deemed important. This time was no different as he reached for the potatoes just sitting there on the merchant’s rather unguarded cart for his hands to grab and his mouth to eat. He reached for the satchel at his side, opening it with one hand while the other began to stealthily put the food into it one by one. The bad grew heavier as he put more into it, but Ben didn’t care that he had already taken too many. He was starving, and he knew the people who wouldn’t live as long as he had would probably need it more, but the last century had made him so jaded and bitter he found he did not give a damn. 

The moment he heard a voice yelling, “You there! Stop!” though he reconsidered how little he cared about the well being of other people. A short and stocky man with a beard to rival any other Ben had ever seen Was now storming toward him with his hand on the hilt of a very long knife that would certainly kill any other man who wasn’t Ben. “Just what do you think you’re doing?”

“Eating,” Ben replied sarcastically, wanting nothing more than for the man to just get his attempt on his life over with so he could move on. “I need food.”

“Well, you can pay for it, then!” the merchant protested. “Nobody steals from my cart.”

Ben spared a look at the remaining potatoes on the man’s cart, and he couldn’t help but notice how wilted many of them looked as he turned his head and looked over at the merchant. He almost would have smiled, if it weren’t for the fact that he was far too exhausted to muster up any sort of emotion for a man like this. “You know, I don’t think anyone would want to,” he replied, then he laughed as the merchant moved faster than Ben would’ve thought, and bent him over the table forcefully—far more so than a man his size had any right to. It was enough that he was forced to let go of the makeshift reins he’d attached to his horse, and the frightened creature immediately made its escape, crying out as it galloped away from him. All he did was roll his eyes in response as he watched it leave, he’d stolen it from someone else anyway. 

“You know what happens to people who steal from me, boy?” the merchant was asking him, doing his absolute best to make his voice sound more menacing than it actually was. The trick was most certainly not working, and it only added fuel to his sarcastic fire. 

“They die from infection?” Ben asked, unable to resist the temptation to goad the man on. It was simply too easy. 

He heard the distinct sound of metal scraping against metal as the man brandished a dagger, then he pinned it to his throat. Ben’s eyes clenched shut, an involuntary response he hadn’t been able to shake even after all this time of knowing he could not die. Maybe a part of him still feared death, and maybe that part still foolishly believed that knife could kill him. 

Faintly, he could hear the man shifting above him, undoubtedly preparing to stab him. He could almost envision the way his blade rose high above his head, the glint of the metal in the sunlight. Would he finally feel it this time? Would he finally be allowed his long overdue death?

“Stop!” a desperate sounding voice cried just before the knife could meet his back, and Ben groaned as he was robbed another chance at finally ending his misery. The man holding the knife let up his hold on him ever so slightly, and Ben slowly opened his eyes to see a woman standing there with an equally fierce look in her eyes to the man’s and a staff held in one hand in a stance that said she meant business. 

She was dressed… well, in a loose fitting brown dress that covered her almost completely like everyone else, belted at the waist to provide the only hint of her figure underneath. Her hair was uncovered, but held back in a series of three ties that kept it in place on the back of her head as she stared down the man and Ben—the merchant in particular was at the sharp end of her share as she hissed at him, “Let him go.”

“Why should I listen to you? You’re a nuisance yourself!” he shouted to her, and it occurred to Ben that in a town as small as this, everyone probably knew each other. The woman, his mystery rescuer, knew his attacker, and judging from the pure daggers she was giving him with her eyes, they did not like each other. 

“Because if you want to see another day, you’ll do what’s right,” she promised him, twirling the staff in her hands. “You know I can use this.”

For the first time, fear appeared in his attacker’s eyes, and he looked between Ben, his potatoes, and the woman. There was another long, lingering moment of hesitation, then he slowly let up on Ben and gave him a shove. “Get on, never show your face here again, or I’ll kill you before she gets here,” he growled, then he glared intensely at him as he stepped away. “You were lucky this time, but don’t ever count on it happening twice.”

Ben almost rolled his eyes as he walked away, coincidentally in the direction of the woman who had rescued him, barely listening to the man as he shouted curses at her as they walked away together. Still despite his inattentiveness, his brain managed to pick up on the man’s words. It must have, for they stuck with him for the next thousand years to come. “I’ll kill you if you keep coming back here,  _ Rey! _ I promise you this! I will kill you!”

It was the first time he’d heard her name. The first time out of a long, countless list of times he would hear it over the course of centuries. It was a name he would be haunted by in the nights to come, one that would keep him awake at night as he wondered where in the world its owner was, and if she was, like him, still alive. Rey became the most important name in his life, and all because he’d stumbled upon the wrong, pissed off merchant. 

“Looking forward to it!” she shouted, though there was a resignation in her voice that Ben knew well. He’d heard it in his own every time he spoke about death. It would seem they both had that in common, neither one of them had any regard for their own lives. A part of him wondered why a mortal woman would feel such a way, but a larger part was annoyed that she had robbed him of another chance to die. What if that had been it? What if that man’s knife would’ve been able to do what no one else could?

That was all he had wanted, another trial at his long awaited death, an end to his suffering. And she’d just robbed him of it. 

~

Rey for her part was much happier. Every time she managed to save someone else, it made her feel a little better about her never ending life. It was the only thing that seemed to bring her joy anymore in a world that seemed determined to make her suffer. 

People usually thanked her when she did this sort of thing, told her they appreciated what she’d done, then they’d moved on with their lives with smiles on their faces. This stranger, the man she had saved, definitely did not look happy with what she had done. He actually looked rather pissed off, if she didn’t know any better. 

“You almost got yourself into a whole lot of trouble, there,” she said, smiling broadly at him as they walked away from the vendor, hoping to strike up a conversation to alleviate some of the anger he was clearly feeling. 

“I could have handled it myself, thanks,” he replied bitterly, surprising her with his rudeness. 

Rey stared at him, disbelieving that he could be like this in the wake of what she’d done. The man was mortal, was he not? Were mortals always so willing to throw away their lives this callously? “I saved your life, the least you could give me is thank you.”

“Thanks, I could’ve handled it.”

And in that moment Rey learned that the stranger who would be seemingly following her for the next thousand years was an absolute  _ ass _ . “You could have died. What sort of a man are you that you’re just willing to throw away your life like that?”

“The sort who has nothing to live for,” he answered her, then he scoffed. “Why am I telling you this? I barely even know your name.”

“It’s Rey,” she replied, then she pushed forward, getting into his space as she tucked her staff into her armpit, and crossed her arms over her chest. “And just who the hell are you that you think saving someone’s life does not warrant a thank you?”

“Why would I tell you my name? What good would it do you?” he asked, then he gestured around them. “Why don’t you go home, leave me alone, and forget you ever saw me?”

“Gladly, just tell me your name first,” she said, her pride unrelenting in its quest to know this stranger’s identity. “Then you never have to see me again.”

The man paused, considering this for a moment, then he stepped closer to her. An energy sparked in the air between them, and Rey couldn’t get a read on it, but it was as if she could suddenly sense something coming on the horizon. It was distant, and so far from her grasp she couldn’t conceptualize its existence yet, but still she was aware of its presence as he looked over her, then he nodded. “My name, and you’ll leave me alone?”

“That’s all I ask,” she replied, unsure why she was asking this man his name. All he’d become was a part of a sea of endless faces and names she had already met and loved and lost. He would become nothing to her come tomorrow, and yet— _ she absolutely had to know his name.  _ “Then you can be on your way.”

He swallowed as if he was nervous, then he sighed and offered her his hand. “My name is Ben,” he told her, and she didn’t know it then, but that name would stick with her like her own. It would become a thing of mystery and wonder, and it would keep her up at night with thoughts of him as the centuries passed, but not yet. That was still hovering over the horizon. Still awaiting her on an impossibly long journey. 

Rey smiled softly at him as she shook his hand. “I’m Rey,” she replied as she touched him for the first time, their hands clapping together forcefully as if they were very familiar with each other. Somehow it felt like they’d met ages ago rather than five minutes, but she couldn’t place where that feeling had come from. They had certainly never met. 

It seemed like an eternity passed as their hands bobbed between them, and Rey gasped slightly as his fingertips brushed hers as he moved his hand away, trying desperately not to think about how the friction of their calloused skin seemed to create electricity in the air between them. “Well, then, Ben… I suppose this is where we part, isn’t it?” she asked, stepping back awkwardly. 

He gave her a nod. “Indeed. So we’re finished?” he asked, that rudeness seeping into his voice again, and thoroughly ruining the moment. 

Disappointment washed over her like a bucket of ice-cold water, and she sighed as the electricity in the air dissipated, giving way to the awkward sort of tension that had settled over them. She blinked at him a few times before she nodded. “Yeah, I guess we are,” she replied, then he stepped past her, and began to take a path north. 

Rey watched him for a few moments, feeling something odd stirring within her as she watched him go, and almost involuntarily her eyes began memorizing his back, and the way it looked. That was a sight she would grow far too familiar with in the years to come. “Where are you going, though? You never said!” she shouted. 

Ben paused, then he turned back to her, and she would swear that he was fighting back a smile even as his anger stayed plastered on his face. “Takodana!” he shouted, then he turned around again, and kept walking away. “But don’t follow me!”

“You must think an awful lot of yourself if you think I’d even consider it, you ass!” 

All she heard in response was a faint dry laugh as Ben disappeared through the trees, and she caught the last glimpse of his black tunic that she would see for the next century. Of course, she thought it would be the last time she saw him ever, and if she saw him again she thought he would be old and wrinkled beyond recognition. He would be an old man if she saw him again, she was sure of it. Everyone else aged so quickly, and she always stood so still. 

Surely it would have been impossible to hope that she wasn’t alone, that there was someone else out there like her. She wouldn’t wish her suffering on anyone, but it would’ve be nice to have had someone to talk to about her pain, wouldn’t it?

Rey couldn’t be sure, and so she headed back through the village to her home in silence. She still kept possession of the home she’d lived in with her family, and everyday when she came home, she was vaguely aware that she walked past their graves, but they were unmarked, forbidding her from distinguishing one member from another as she passed. Each day she always said her prayers for them all, unable to remember which one was which as the years faded into one another and the memories became too painful to want to keep. 

That particular afternoon, she watched as the sun began to set at the bottom of the little hill she lived on, setting itself down over the ocean in the distance as she watched. Another day down, and she had no clue whether or not she was closer to death like everyone else was. 

She sighed as a breeze blew past her, change finally carried through on the wind. Somehow, though she wasn’t sure, this day had been different from the others. For the first time in a century of a ridiculously long life, she felt as if she were alive and not just sleepwalking through her days. The day had been different, even if the encounter she’d had with the stranger-- _ Ben- _ \- hadn’t been amicable, and he had been an absolute ass. If she were able to, she would’ve thanked him for bringing this feeling over her, because for the first time in so long, Rey spun around in the light of the fading sun.

It wasn’t quite enough to make her smile, but it was enough to make her think that maybe, just maybe, her long lifespan wasn’t for naught. After more than a hundred years of praying for death, and the countless attempts at ending her own life, she found that those things were the last things on her mind. Maybe there was a reason for all of this after all, and she was meant to live. There was something great across the ocean of life she knew she had yet to live, and for once, she couldn’t wait to see it. 

~

Ben was feeling much the same way after the encounter as he strode up the hill and away from the village. Admittedly, he’d been cross with the woman at first for her interruption, but when they’d spoken, he’d been able to forget about the shadow that always lurked over his shoulder, looking but never touching. He’d finally been able to just live for a moment, and he felt almost normal again. 

He’d almost forgotten what it felt like. That stranger had awakened something within him, and his will to live was stirring again as he made the remainder of his journey to Takodana in the light of the dying sun. 

Rey’s effect on him carried him through until that night when he stopped in a tavern, and for the first time in ages, he didn’t drink until he passed out. No, he had just enough where it buzzed in his still youthful body, then he set off to work on building the home he’d occupy until people noticed that he wasn’t getting any older. 

There was a brief wave of sadness that hit him that night as he realized he would never see her again, and she would be dead probably within the next twenty to thirty years depending on how well her health fared. Ben didn’t want to think about it too harshly, but he certainly wished her the best. She had been kind, and despite their initial meeting, he found he didn’t quite hate her. There was still a small hint of disdain he felt whenever he thought about it, but it was overshadowed by the overwhelming feeling of actually being alive. 

His heart was beating soundly in his chest that night when he laid out on a blanket beneath the stars. Without thinking, he rested a hand over it, and for the next several hours he laid there like that, just feeling his own heart beating in his chest as tears leaked from his eyes. 

Ben was feeling real, raw emotions for some odd reason. And that did happen to him occasionally, but he always spent so much time in an emotionless void that he forgot what it felt like to experience such things. He wasn’t entirely sure if he liked it or hated it yet, but he didn’t mind it for the time being. At the bare minimum he had experienced some sort of change, a shift in the paradigm of his day to day life. 

His journey seemed to be never ending, but that day he’d felt the tides turning. There was a new path he’d just started downwards, though he could already sense it would be an impossibly long and tiring journey, and for once he found himself looking forward to his life—if only for a brief moment. Perhaps he wasn’t meant to die, but he was certain of one thing. 

Destiny had other, much bigger plans for him than death. 


	3. 1104 CE, England

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yeah this is super rough with the editing cause I just didn't have time. I gotta go write a paper I don't understand but hopefully it makes a tiny bit of sense lmao. 
> 
> Also slight warning for blood later in the chapter.

Another century later, Rey still lived for the most part alone. She kept to her solitude, which became increasingly difficult to do as the population on the large island she’d made her home increased rapidly. Towns and villages popped up everywhere along the coast and well within the boundaries of land, and the more people there were on the island, the more difficult it became to hide her inability to age. 

Her ability to hide her secret was truly a marvel. The fact that she’d only been asked once in her near two hundred year existence if she ought to look older astounded her, and she considered herself lucky. A part of her wanted to just be out with it, to tell the world what she was and let herself live in public for the remainder of her days as the woman who could never die. 

But society wasn’t always the nicest to women, and with the rising of religion throughout the countryside, she suspected she’d be deemed some sort of heretic and possibly tortured until the eventual end of her days. If she was to live this long, everlasting life, she didn’t want to live it suffering more than she already had. 

She’d been through enough hell already. 

These days she lived a few miles to the south of one of the larger towns in a country ruled under a king whose name she had yet to learn, though she suspected it was something along the lines of Edward or William. Tradition amongst the kings she’d seen already, though there hadn’t been many yet. The concept of a kingdom was still relatively new to the little island.

The concept of invaders on the other hand, wasn’t so new. Every so often bells would ring warning of a new invasion, a new attack that the women and children would all go running from and the men would grab weapons to go off and fight. Rey typically stayed with the men in this case, simply keeping herself in disguise should anyone suspect anything. If she kept her hair back, she looked boyish enough. Her curves were slight in ways that allowed her to maintain the illusion that she was a man amongst men when she wore baggy clothes. 

She hated fighting, but how many armies had soldiers who couldn’t die? It made her feel important, like she was paving the way for her own future and for the generations that were yet to come, but she would inevitably see. 

On this particular day, on a brisk autumn morning in October, such an invasion was to occur, but the morning on which it did was strikingly ordinary. The sun rose as it always did to the East, and with it, so did Rey. She got up out of her bed, and stretched as she threw back her blankets, padding her bare feet across a cold floor that woke her up like nothing else. Once she was up, she let down her hair from the tie she’d kept it in the night before, and sauntered over to her makeshift fireplace to pluck off the leftovers she’d made the night before. 

She then sat alone at her table as she’d done for the past century, and picked at the meats she’d cooked the previous evening. It was an exact repetition of every single day she’d had for the last century. The last time any day had been different had been when she’d encountered that stranger in the market, the one who had been astonishingly rude to her when she’d saved his life. Not that it meant much anyway. It had been ninety two years since then. By now, he was long dead, and she could only wonder if there was anyone still around but herself to mourn him. 

Not that she’d mourn him anyway, he was after all a simple stranger, and he was an absolute arse. Still, he’d reminded her what it felt like to feel her heart beating in her chest, to feel like she was alive again, and she yearned to feel that once more. Just once, then she could perhaps live happily again. 

Once breakfast finished, she threw the remains outside onto the crevice just outside her home, which was now on a much more flat surface area than the small hill she’d lived on in Jakku. She stared out into the sunrise, watching as the sky turned an array of pinks and purples that were always pleasant to see. 

A bird flew across the sky in the distance, fluttering from tree to tree in search of a meal as she watched it, finding the smallest hint of joy in witnessing the creature’s search. Rey sat down then in front of her little home, electing to watch it for a while as she thought through what she’d do that day. In about an hour, she’d begin to train, working with a sword she’d stolen off of a man who was long since dead, and doing things women of her society would never normally be allowed to do. She figured as long as she kept out of sight, she would probably fare well.

After training, she would take a walk down into the village, and buy her foods for the next few days before retreating back into her isolation, and writing down the events of her day, of her life that she could remember on a piece of parchment. At least, that was how she hoped it would go. God willing, she’d be granted another peaceful day, and no one would come down from the north and attack them. 

Rey closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she listened to the world around her, to the soft breeze blowing her hair off of her face, causing her brown, simple tunic to ripple in the wind. The belt at her waist, she suspected, was the only thing keeping it in place. Still the feeling was rather pleasant, and her thoughts about the wind kept her distracted from the thoughts about the much less pleasant, much nastier things that she tended to think about when she had as much time to herself as she did. 

When things got too rough, sometimes Rey would interact with the townspeople of wherever she was living at the moment, and she would pretend for a day that she was one of them, and she would die within the same decade they did. She would be old and wrinkled, perhaps even settled down, married and content if she found the right person, but that was not her fate. 

Her eyes snapped open to her reality, and the light of the sun that was now blinding her as it never had before. That was her reality. That was her life. She shook her head in disappointment, wondering when she’d learn, when she’d stop having false expectations for what she would get out of her life. All she’d gotten so far was misery with scant few smiles scattered throughout. 

With a sigh, she pushed herself up off the ground, and brushed the dirt from her rear before walking back into her house to enjoy one more hour of relaxation before she started her training with the sword. She walked over to the back of the room, picking the sword up from the hilt, and twirling it a few times in her hands before she set it down on the table, and walked back into her bedroom. 

Mundane things were also known to her as the things she could do without having to think at all. She would not have to form a single coherent thought as she made the bed, nor would she have to think as she walked outside, and prepared to take on the tree she frequently engaged in battle with. The silver birch bore many scars from the time it had spent under her wrath, though she’d only been in this part of the country for about two years. It hadn’t quite been a long enough time for her to scar the area thoroughly yet. 

Once the bed was made, Rey walked back out into her kitchen, stealing the sword from off of the table before she burst out of her own front door, the brown leather of the boots she wore splashing into a small puddle as she walked down the hill. The night before had been the heaviest rainfall in two weeks, and now water coated the sides of her calves as she made her way down to her tree. 

Ignoring the damp, cold spot on her leg, Rey spin the sword around her hand, and gripped it firmly with both hands as she took a deep breath. As she exhaled, all hell broke loose, and she became a tornado of metal and fury. 

She struck the tree with a series of vicious strokes, giving the fight her all as she made her way through the exercises she’d taught herself over the years. The lessons that had made her a fighter worthy of the strongest adversaries. Many men had fallen at the wrong end of her weapon, lives wasted carelessly for causes that would be over in seconds that with the passage of time she was certain she would forget about. She’d already forgotten so much. 

There was a short list of things Rey could remember. 

The first was that she had a family. At some point, there had been a group of people she loved. She was almost absolutely positive she’d never married, and she lived with the family she’d been born into at the time of the lightning strike. 

That was the second thing she could remember, the feeling of the bolt shooting up and down her entire body, rendering her unconscious. She remembered that storm vividly, the way the winds had whipped her clothes from her skin, her hair around her face, and nearly knocked her over before the lightning had ever had the chance to. 

The third thing was the grief she felt whenever she lost someone she grew close to. The overwhelming feeling of her heart shattering into new pieces in her chest was familiar and somehow never faded away. Every single time a new person died, she felt it in her soul. Tears pricked to her eyes at the memory of all the faces blurred out by time, and she cried out viciously as she sliced clean through her tree, stumbling backwards as it fell to the ground before her. 

She was panting hard as she reached the end of her mental checklist, and she dropped her sword to the ground, sinking to her knees as she recalled the man she saved in the market. Rey liked to claim she remembered him because he had made her otherwise numb and dull life different, even if it was only for a minute. In reality she wasn’t sure what it was about him, about  _ Ben _ , that had stuck with her for so long. She’d never see him again anyway, but he stayed with her in her memories despite her not too positive feelings about their encounter. 

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t shake her memory of the man she thought was mortal, and she wasn’t sure why. 

Rey collapsed to the ground as she tried to force air back into her lungs. Not that it mattered much whether or not she succeeded, it wasn’t like it would kill her anyway. A groan escaped her lips as she felt around in the grass for the hilt of her weapon, ready to pick it up and move on with her day. Maybe she’d find a new tree. She’d just destroyed her favorite one, though. Pity. 

It would seem she was starting to outlive even the trees now.  _ Wonderful.  _

Taking in a deep breath, Rey picked up the sword, and pushed herself slowly off of the ground as she prepared to finish off the rest of her day. Aside from her contemplation of things she remembered, it proceeded normally otherwise after that. She ate dinner, she began to journal with a quill and ink, and she was starting to prepare for bed when the day changed its course. 

The distant sound of men screaming, the cries of a battle entered her ears just as she was preparing to undress for the night. Up until then, she had been working without thinking again, her body moving without the assistance of her mind as she made her way through the motions of the day. But the moment she heard the screams, especially so close to her own home, Rey burst into action. 

She tightened the belt she wore, and grabbed her sword from the table where she had left it after her training from earlier. Tucking it under her armpit, she ran out of the door while tugging her hair back into the bun she wore during battles such as the one she was fairly certain she was about to walk into. 

The breeze picked up as she ran into the woods, and began to weave her way through the trees. She made note of the sturdiest ones for when she returned later from her time fighting, and needed a new target to practice on. The thought had her smirking slightly as she stepped over the forest floor, the leaves and fallen branches crunching beneath her feet as the sound of metal clashing against metal drew closer. 

The battle came into her vision a few seconds later as she burst through the other side of the tree line. It was barely a skirmish. It was maybe sixty men total, twenty on one side, forty on the other. And she could scarcely tell friend from foe at a distance, but as she grew closer, she started to recognize the faces of the villagers she’d begun protecting, which gave her an estimate of the total numbers each side had. To make a long story short, her side was the one lacking the numbers, and she was going to give them hell. 

She pushed forward, gripping her sword tightly as she joined the fray, fighting the first enemy she saw, which happened to be a man who was shorter than she. His face was covered mostly by a beard that extended in length down to his chest, tangled and marred by a lack of self care, his teeth blackened by rot, and his clothing torn and tattered by wear. She thought almost comically that this man’s clothing might have been older than she was. 

She even told him such as she fought him, but he didn’t seem to be amused. The man cried out, and slashed in an aggressive arch across her chest, missing her by inches. Rey managed to jump back at the last possible second, then she retaliated, stabbing at his defenseless stomach and slicing him clean through. 

Her opponent coughed up blood onto her sword as he looked down at where she’d run him through, then his eyes rolled back into his head. As she withdrew her sword from the man’s gut, she knew he was dead before he even hit the ground. Another life gone, wasted, and taken at her own hands. Lucky bastard. 

She then turned her attentions on the remainder of the battle, searching the field for another opponent, and finding him in the form of a tall man dressed in black from head to toe. It even covered parts of his face, though that may have also been the raven shade of his hair. It was impossible to tell as he turned around from stabbing one of the villagers she knew--the man she bought her meals from frequently. If the stranger weren’t already set in her mind as a target, he most certainly was now. 

Rey didn’t give him time to turn fully to look at her. Instead, she charged at him, letting out a warrior’s cry as she swung her sword over her head full force, and he only just had time to retaliate. His sword met hers in a violent, spark inducing collision that brought their bodies unnecessarily close as they worked to break out of it. 

She wound up breaking away first, pushing off from the blade lock before she began to meet him strike for strike, amazed by the man’s skill. They hadn’t been engaged in battle long, but she could tell he was better at this than any of the other men on the field. He managed to force her to retreat, backing her into the tree line as their battle carried on into the woods, blades sparking and meeting and cutting into trees as they passed. 

They moved in perfect sync with one another. It was more of a dance than it was a fight, and as their eyes met over their locked blades, she felt this more strongly than ever as she looked into shockingly familiar eyes. For some reason, though, she couldn’t quite place where she knew them from. She’d seen them before in the past, they belonged to one of the ghosts that haunted her dreams, but which one he was she couldn’t tell. 

Crying out again, she charged forward to stab her blade into his gut, but he blocked it in the nick of time again. Both of them grunted as the force of the action had them stumbling backwards, but each of them had a fury in their eyes that couldn’t be contained, and the two charged foward again almost immediately, and the game was once again on. 

She wanted to scream at him to give up, to run away while he could, before she could take away his life like she’d taken to many others. If he ran, maybe he could have the life she always wanted for herself, but was never going to be able to have. 

But she didn’t tell him that, instead, she continued fighting them in their dark dance further and further into the woods she’d run through to get there until the sounds of the battle beyond grew quiet, and it was just them and the woodland creatures. Even they were silent on this day, though, as if they were all watching the forest battle with bated breath to see the outcome of it. They’d never been this quiet during a fight before, and she almost found it odd. She would have definitely found it to be so if she’d been able to pay attention, but she could only focus on the battle in front of her. 

Rey fought viciously, forcing the man swathed in black further and further back toward a tree with every aggressive strike. The man didn’t even have time to look behind him to make sure he wasn’t stepping on any tree roots as he made his escape, and she felt a surge of delight as she realized she was probably going to win this battle when he inevitably fell. 

The fall happened about ten seconds later. He stumbled over the root of a tree, crying out as he fell over, and the black scarf was knocked from his head while Rey fell on top of him, straddling him at the waist as she prepared the final blow. A pale face was exposed beneath the fabric, and Rey was just bringing down her sword to finish the kill strike, the weapon’s tip a mere inch from his chest when suddenly time came to a stand still. 

She knew that face. She’d seen it so many times before. It had haunted her dreams and been present amongst a chorus of the dead in her nightmares. It was one of the few faces she could remember, but it was impossible, so impossible. There was no way that the man, that  _ Ben  _ could ever still be alive. There was no one else like her in the world, was there? Were other people also unable to die? 

It was impossible, but it was the truth. Ben was alive, and she was about to kill him. Well, if he were mortal, she was. 

Rey’s sword stopped moving just as it began to pierce through the first layer of his skin, a tiny drop of his blood making its presence known through the layers of his clothing as it washed onto her sword. Both of them were panting hard as time moved again, fear in the eyes of the predator and the prey as they took one another in, the former realizing the latter was far from what he seemed. 

“What are you doing?” Ben asked, his voice tinged with disbelief as he watched her. “Just do it!”

“This… this is impossible,” she breathed, hating the way her voice shook as she looked down at him, but she was right. Everyone else was able to die. Every other person was perfectly capable of leaving the world except for her. In two hundred years, she hadn’t found anyone else who could possibly live as long as she did. “You… you should be dead.” 

Fear filled Ben’s eyes, then confusion with the barest hint of recognition as the tumblers turned in his brain. “What… what do you mean?” he asked, his voice shaking the same way hers did. 

Rey couldn’t explain why, but she nearly sobbed; whether it was from relief or exhaustion or fear, she couldn’t tell, but she felt a lump from in her throat. “Because… you’re… this is impossible, Ben.”

His eyes grew wide, and then despite the fact that her sword was quite literally a fraction of an inch in his chest, he leaned forward a little more, pressing the blade into his skin and only wincing slightly as he asked her, “How the hell do you know that?”

She scoffed. “Because one hundred years ago, I saved your life in Jakku and you were an ungrateful ass!”

The moment his heart stopped beating in his chest was written on his face as plain as the light of day. “... _ Rey?” _ he asked in disbelief, and her heart raced inexplicably at the fact that he remembered her, too. 

“How… how are you…?”

“How are you still here?” he asked, and then she could hear the pain in his voice, too, the pain of watching the people he loved die for centuries. He knew it as well as she did. Neither one of them ever saw the same face twice if they left a town, once they were gone, the people where they’d come from were things of the past. 

“How are  _ you _ still here?” she breathed in response, feeling the tears begin to rise to her eyes. “Everyone dies, that’s how this works! Everyone dies and it’s—“

“It’s just me.” He nodded slowly. “That’s what I’ve thought, too. This is…” Ben paused, not knowing what to say for a moment before he suddenly looked down at where her sword was piercing through his chest, still drawing blood that now started sleeping into the fabric of his clothing. “Can you stop stabbing me for a few seconds?” 

Rey looked at him in befuddlement for a few more seconds, then she realized what he meant, and immediately nodded, moving back off of him, and swinging her leg back over his waist so she was no longer straddling him. “Sorry,” she breathed, then she sheathed her sword back in its place as she sat down on the ground beside him, and he sat up to look at her. “I don’t… normally when I stab someone they don’t…”

“They don’t live,” he finished for her, and she watched his eyes drifting over her. She could see the haunted expression in them well, she saw it in herself every day, but this was a different haunting. They didn’t usually see their ghosts. “Everyone dies, but you… you’re still here… how…?”

“I don’t know, I’ve been asking myself for two hundred years,” she told him, then she laughed as a realization came to mind. “This is why you were so rude to me in the market, isn’t it? You… you knew you’d be fine…”

“Actually, I was thinking I wanted to die,” Ben admitted, then he swallowed nervously. “Thought I’d try again.”

She let out a dry laugh, knowing that feeling well, too. “It never works, no matter how creative you get with it, does it? You just feel pain and then…”

“You have to keep living through it, despite it…” he said, the look in his eyes more haunted than ever as he spoke. “And everyone gets to die around you, but… but not you.”

A soft breeze blew past them then, causing her eyes to mist further as she took him in too. Ben looked good despite the years that had passed since she’d last seen him. He wasn’t clean shaven, but his facial hair was well trimmed. “Nor you,” she observed, her breathing still shaky as she looked at him, remembering the first time they’d met. He’d looked desolate and lost then, and he looked even more so now. “This should be impossible.”

“And yet here we are,” he replied, continuing to stare at her like he couldn’t believe she was real. In his defense, she was probably doing the exact same thing to him. A laugh escaped him then, rousing her from her thoughts. 

“What’s so funny?”

“I was about to ask how the last century had gone for you, but I figured if you are anything like me…” he said, then he began to pick at a flower with his fingers absentmindedly. “It has probably been absolutely horrible.”

She grunted her assent as she looked out beyond the woods. From where they sat, she could see the top of her little house peeking out from beyond the tree line. The sun was just beginning to set on the horizon, casting them both in a pink and orange light that made her feel again as if she was at peace. It was strange, she thought, that the only times she’d felt at peace since the lightning strike had been when she was in his presence. Well, perhaps it wasn’t his presence. She’d need a few more trials to be sure. 

“It hasn’t been horrible, it’s just… overwhelmingly numb. I haven’t felt anything in ages,” she admitted, unsure of why she was telling him such a thing. There was no reason for her to trust him. The sole thing they had in common was their inability to die, and that wasn’t something she wished on anyone. Not even her greatest enemy. 

“I know what you mean,” Ben replied, and as she looked over, she noticed he too was hypnotized by the sunset, seeing it as if for the first time. “I’ve felt so numb I haven’t known what feeling was like until…”

“Until what?” 

He fell silent for a moment after that, and then the last peaceful moment between them commenced. Its beginning was beautiful, all sunset and soft breezes, and a warmth flooding her chest at the realization that she wasn’t the only one who could not seem to die. 

The middle was equally peaceful, and she and Ben exchanged a look, a silent conversation, an apology for what the other had been through traveling on their own path independent for the last century. The conversation asked whether or not they would remain on the same path after this, if Rey would invite him into her home and offer him company, a way to live out his years in a way that ensured he wasn’t alone. She was willing to, he wasn’t exactly likeable, and their first two encounters so far had only proved that to be true, but she didn’t hate him so badly she wanted him to be alone again. No one deserved to feel like they had. 

But that was when their moment of silence came to an end, and all thanks to a tiny comment that shouldn’t have had an impact, but it did. “I don’t mean anything rude by this, but you must be aware of how our society works. How come no one has noticed a woman fighting?”

The moment was shattered like the breaking of glass. The little fragments of peace scattered throughout the space between them as the illusion that they could be allies was completely wiped out. Ben’s casual sentence brought back the fact that they had been fighting, and they had been fighting for a reason. It brought back the memory of the raiders who brought violence to her village, who hurt women like her and killed innocents in the name of either thievery or an attempt to claim the land. It brought her to the realization that Ben was one of those men, and he supported what they were doing. He was an enemy. She couldn’t trust him. 

Rey’s hand found its grip on her sword. “I wear a disguise,” she answered him. “I’m still wearing it, but I chose to reveal myself to you when I most certainly shouldn’t have.”

“Why?”

“Do you really have to ask that? Why do you come down here from the north and raid villages full of innocents?” she asked. “Do you think their lives are so worthless that they can just be pissed away so cruelly?”

Ben was on his feet instantly, and she quickly followed suit, both of them drawing their swords in perfect harmony. And she hated how beautifully they moved together; the two of them truly were the most magnificent dance to witness, but this was not a peaceful dance, no. One of them would draw the other’s blood by the battle’s end. Or maybe they both would. 

Only time would tell. 

“I’m just trying to make a living, same as you,” he told her, a vain attempt to excuse himself. “You should know I don’t kill anyone. Not if I don’t have to.”

“No, but you throw your support behind the men who do… do you not? Your sword fights for them!”

Ben looked like he wanted to argue, but Rey wasn’t going to give him the chance. She stepped forward, striking first in an overhead blow that he was quick to block, ducking almost comically to avoid her strike before slipping out from under it to engage her further as the battle commenced. The distant shouts of their comrades filled her ears as she pushed him back through the tree line, the way they’d come initially. 

Rey tried not to think about where that first fight had led them as her sword created sparks with Ben’s, the violent crashing a complete contrast to the serenity of the woods around them, to the quiet, retreating light of the sunset. They fought in close quarters, never more than a sword’s length away from one another as their own little war raged through the forest. 

“We don’t have to fight!” Ben shouted as their blades locked, and try though she might to push against him and break it, neither of them budged. 

“Yes we do! As long as you’re backing the wrong side!” she yelled, then she broke the lock, and began to force his retreat toward another nearby tree. If she could only pin him there, he’d be forced to lose the battle, but Ben wasn’t like her other opponents. She could stick him with her sword as much as she liked, and he wouldn’t fall. 

She’d just have to cross that bridge when she came to it. 

“But consider this, we’ve both been alone for the better part of— _ what _ —two centuries? Aren’t you tired of it?”

“Tired of  _ what? _ ”

“Being alone!” He slashed across in an arch that would’ve cut her in two if she hadn’t blocked it. Their swords created sparks upon their impact. “Always waking up alone and watching everyone around you die,” he finished as he engaged her in another blade lock, their faces close enough that she could see every little mark scattered throughout his face. Every little curve and contour was on prominent display, combining in an almost hypnotic way that had her a little entranced by Ben. 

She forced herself to focus. Yes, she knew that feeling of loneliness rather well, she knew that empty pit that always sat in her stomach, never feeling full, never satisfied. But Ben had proven himself unworthy of her trust, unworthy of her time, and so she shook her head. “I’m not tired enough, I guess,” she replied, then she broke the blade lock, and shoved him against the tree she’d been steadily backing him toward before slashing her sword up his face in a horrifically beautiful arch that drew the blood she’d anticipated at the start of the battle. 

She didn’t stop there, though. As if forgetting her enemy couldn’t die, she then retreated while his head slumped against the tree in shock, and ran her sword through his gut, a move which would’ve been fatal to any other man. He certainly cried out from pain like one.

Ben wasn’t any other man, though, and he simply looked down at her sword, breathing heavily as he took it in through the blood that had started to seep into his eyes from a cut she knew would heal within minutes. Already the top, thin end of the cut—which ran from above his eyebrow to somewhere beneath his clothing—was starting to close of its own accord like she’d seen many times in her own injuries. It was then that it sank into her that it was real, that Ben was truly just like her. Before that moment, despite what they’d talked about, he could have simply resembled the man she had met a century earlier. They could have just been related to one another, but with Ben’s heart continuing to beat in his chest even as her sword skewered his internal organs, she knew for certain. He was exactly like her, and she was truly not alone, whether she liked it or not. 

Time seemed to stand still in that moment, more so than it already did for her. It felt like even the dust particles drifting in the air around them had come to a stop, reflecting the last bit of sunlight that had touched them before everything had come to a screeching halt as Rey stared at Ben. One hand was on his shoulder, pinning him to the tree from his upper body, growing wet with the blood she’d drawn on his face and neck, and the other was gripping the handle of the sword that was inside his body, knuckles going white as her eyes bore into his. 

“We’re the same,” Ben breathed, reaching up with his free hand to wipe away a drop of his own blood as it tried to make its way inside his mouth. “Can’t you see it?”

She swallowed, feeling tears rise to her eyes as she shook her head. “No, no we’re not. You’re wrong,” she said, then she pressed her sword into him a little further, causing him to grunt from the pain. “I could never be like you.” With that, she pushed off from him, staggering backwards as the moment between them was broken. 

Still breathing hard, Rey wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead, and pointed the still bloody end of her sword at him. “Go, get out of here and never speak to me again.”

“Rey, think about this-“

“I did,” she answered quickly, not giving Ben the chance to even begin tempting her into joining up with him. “And I want you to leave.”

His eyes were so soulful, pleading, begging her not to do this as he stepped away from the tree, placing a hand over where she’d stabbed him as the pain of his body repairing itself shot through his system. “Rey…”

“Please, just make this easier on the both of us and go. If you’re as like me as you say there’s nothing I can threaten you with,” she told him. “Just go, and don’t come back.”

Ben stood up a little straighter, and she felt her voice threatening to shake a little as she kept the business end of her sword pointed firmly at him. He could run himself through as many times as he liked, she was well aware, but she couldn’t imagine it felt particularly good. Or maybe he’d grown as numb to it as she had. Only time would tell. “Go!” she ordered him, and Ben’s eyes continued to stare pleading, hopeful as he walked past her, gripping his own sword tightly in one hand as he moved through the trees back to where they could both still hear the distant battle coming to a close. If the victorious shouts were anything to go by, it was the villagers she called neighbors who had won. 

The victory should have felt glorious. It should have made her smile, but all she could feel was that same hollow emptiness, and just a twinge of pain trickling in with it. Rey didn’t care about victory, she didn’t even care that she had defeated Ben, in fact, she felt a feeling she could only describe as trickling agony washing over her as he gave her a nod. 

“I’ll go,” he said, and she watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “But if you ever change your mind… the offer still stands. All you need to do is find me.”

“If we ever see each other again it won’t be because I came looking,” she promised him, then Ben looked off into the edge of the tree line where in the distance they could hear the sound of his men retreating back up north. 

He looked back at her once more, looking as if he wanted to say something else, but instead he merely nodded, and began to walk away. She watched him the entire time, committing him to memory again as he made his way home. Her heart was aching in her chest as she watched her chance at not being lonely anymore slip away from her. It took a lot of force for her to remember why she let him walk away as his silhouette grew smaller and smaller. 

After a while, he put his black hood back up, and she forced herself to turn away from him as she began the walk back to her home. The lump that had formed in her throat threatened to burst forth in sobs as she walked away, keeping her determined stare on the home waiting for her through the line of the trees. 

Rey was so lost in her own thoughts she almost didn’t notice when she finally reached her home, nearly colliding with her own door as she sheathed her sword again, not caring to clean it first. She gasped in shock upon the near collision, then she stepped back, staring at the door as the emotions spawned by meeting Ben again in the forest overwhelmed her. Before she knew what was happening, Rey collapsed against her front door, and for the first time in nearly a century, tears filled her eyes as the full weight of what had just happened. 

She wasn’t the only one this had happened to. Somehow, through some cruel, cruel twist of fate, someone else had gotten the same horrid punishment. And now thanks to Ben, Rey was feeling anguish. He’d brought her peace before, comfort even, but for the first time in two centuries, she was feeling pure, unfiltered agony. 

Letting loose a sob, Rey sank to the floor, letting the sun’s fading light warm her as she let herself cry, and two hundred years of pent up tension unleashed itself into the air. Still there was something in the air that told her this was far from the end. It was the same feeling she’d gotten the last time she and Ben had gone their separate, somewhat amicable ways, that feeling that somehow the journey was still at its beginning flooded her veins. 

As Rey sobbed into the crisp, autumn air, she knew without a doubt that she was still at the beginning, and her journey, with life and with Ben, was only just getting started. 


	4. The Southern Coast of England. 1273 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, a warning for mentions of depression and blood. It's not super super graphic, but it's there for sure.

Nearly two centuries went by before he saw her again. It was almost enough time for him to stop thinking about her every single day he drew breath, but not quite. Rey never slipped his mind. Not even as he made a drastic location change from his northern village back down toward the island’s middle.

He spent twenty years back in the village he’d first met her in. Jakku at that point was only slightly less desolate than it had been when they first met. It had started to become a trade hub of sorts, but only just. He wasn’t sure why he stayed there as long as he did, but there was certainly a part of him that was hoping he would see her again. Despite how they had parted, despite the years and the heartache caused by their last encounter, she was the only person he knew he stood a chance of seeing again. The only one who, like him, would never die. 

That tiny village became his home for the next twenty years before he moved on, his travels taking him past where he’d grown up, but he never let himself touch that village. The memories were too painful, well, what little he could remember. It was all so faint, so distant, and always just out of reach. But was it out of reach or was he just too afraid to face his past?

Another question for him to avoid until another day. 

By the time he found himself in Rey’s company again, he’d settled into a decently sized home on the southern coast of the island. It was just far enough away that the sea spray didn’t wash over him when he stepped outside, but still close enough that he could feel the cool breeze it brought him each morning. Like he had with centuries past, and like Rey had said she’d done as well he largely lived in isolation. 

Technically there had been someone in Jakku, someone he thought he might’ve grown to love if it hadn’t been for their mortal lifespan. When the first gray hair had appeared on their head… he tried not to think of that particular ghost as he tried not to think about any of them. Each one hurt more than the last, but none of them hurt like the ghost that wasn’t dead at all. 

Rey’s rejection of spending her time with him had hurt far worse than her sword driving itself through his gut. The memory played itself in his head every day or maybe just at night in his dreams sometimes, and he always regretted how they’d parted. He felt loss rush through him as he recalled how her eyes had burned with rage when she fought him, how there had been no remorse when she’d thrust her sword through him so hard he felt it leave a nick in the tree she’d pinned him against. 

He couldn’t exactly judge her, though. Had their roles been reversed, he was certain he would’ve done the exact same thing. A creeping, unsettling certainty had slowly risen within him over the last one hundred and seventy years, and that was that the two of them were each other’s equals. They were two sides of the same coin, and were far more alike than either was willing to admit. 

It was the morning that they would finally reunite that he dreamt this realization. It came to him as he relived their battle in his nightmares, their swords clashing, sparking violently amongst a raging storm. The skies the afternoon of the actual battle had been clear, their backdrop that of a sunset as their feet skidded in the dirt and their blood fell like rain upon the roots of the trees. 

It was as if it was happening right in front of him, like he was reliving it. The last near two centuries had happened to someone else. All of his senses were heightened, he could smell the sweat off of their bodies, could feel the heat radiating between them in the cool autumn air as their two man battle raged viciously on. 

He truly thought it was real, he always thought it was real whenever that fight came into his dreams. It frequently woke him up screaming, which had displeased quite a few of the people who shared his bed on nights when he’d actually sought their company, and that morning was no different. As Rey’s sword plunged into his gut and her voice growled for him to leave her, he woke with a start, shouting and swearing as he came into consciousness. 

His hand clamped over his mouth as he ceased his cries, gasping for air as he sat up bolt right in bed, his blankets falling from his bare, sweat covered chest. The cool air filled in the space more quickly than he was ready, and Ben shivered against the cold as he came down from the sheer panic he’d felt upon waking. 

He slowly removed his hand from his mouth, and took a series of deep, heaving breaths. As usual, it was just his memory. It wasn’t real, but a part of him wanted it to be if only for the purpose that he wouldn’t be alone if it was real. He could talk to her again, attempt to strike some sort of friendship—some sort of  _ alliance  _ between them. Ben didn’t care what they were to one another as long as they didn’t have to spend another day alone. 

Rubbing a hand over his face, he looked out the window to find that the hour had not quite approached dawn. The full moon was still shining down on him through his window, though the horizon over the coast had started to grow gray. It’s light shone off of his sweat soaked skin, his damp hair, and cast the entire room in a peaceful glow. This did little to calm him, but it was enough that he gave a great sigh, and threw back the rest of his sheets, exposing his trouser covered legs to the night’s overwhelmingly cold air. 

He crossed his arms over his chest, rubbing at them with his hands to keep warm as he made way for his fireplace on the far side of the room. The stone floor was ice against his feet, and he felt he may as well have been walking over a frozen lake, or like the sea outside had frozen over after washing his home out to its icy depths. The thought had him give a weak chuckle as he grabbed wood off of the pile he kept stacked beside the fire, providing him with enough amusement that he didn’t notice the cold much further until five minutes later when he was sitting with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders in front of his lit fire. 

Stoking the flames periodically with an iron poker he’d stolen off of a rich lord, Ben thought on his nightmare for a few moments, wondering why he continued to dream of her even after all this time. He’d lived several lifetimes between the last time he’d seen her and that very moment. For all he knew, she had finally gotten lucky and managed to find her way to a peaceful death, but there was still that potential that he would see her again, that there was one more person out there he would never have to permanently say goodbye to. One less ghost to haunt him in the night. 

But even if he did see her again, she certainly didn’t want to see him. She’d made that very clear in their parting that still broke him a little to think about. He shook his head, removing her from his thoughts as he instead focused on what he’d need to do throughout this day in particular. Ben was well overdue for a trip to the market, since he’d forgotten to eat again for the past three days. 

Hunger still tore into him, but he’d been so lost in his thoughts again, so lost in a new period of depression that he’d simply forgotten that his body—for some godforsaken reason—still demanded he eat food. 

Once the sun was up he’d have to head for the market and for the first time in ages he’d have to interact with his neighbors. He dreaded the journey with a passion he could only describe as religious. Perhaps that had been part of the reason he’d allowed himself to starve over the last few days. Since the most recent loss he’d suffered five years earlier, Ben had been avoiding human contact as much as he possibly could.

In time he would be ready to interact with them again, but Ben was nearing his four hundredth birthday and he was growing tired. The routine of settling down, adjusting to a new place, learning new faces and names, and watching them grow old or notice he wasn’t, and him subsequently moving to a new place every time, was growing as old as he wasn’t. 

For a moment he closed his eyes, listening to the fire burning in front of him, and just let himself pretend for a while that he didn’t have those problems. He was just an ordinary man with an ordinary life and friends that kept him company and aged at the same pace he did. 

By the time he opened them again, the sun had risen over the horizon, and he listened to the faint sound of the ocean’s waves cresting onto the shore as he put out his fire with water from a basin. He then walked over to the edge of his bed, and picked up a grey tunic, which he quickly threw over his head before walking over to his nightstand where a leather belt rested on top while his sword leaned against it from its perch on the floor. A tiny scratch was made in the stone of his floors from the sharp edge of the blade. He really ought to have gotten a new one, but he couldn’t bring himself to. He’d carried the same blade with only a repairs and the occasional sharpening tool to keep it in prime fighting condition. After all, it still worked, and it still fended off attackers. There was no need to replace what wasn’t broken.

Once he was fully dressed, Ben made his way out the door, and paused as he took in the sunrise. It wasn’t much of a sunrise that morning, the sky was completely covered by the white-grey underbellies of clouds, but not ones that promised a violent storm that would bring the sea to his doorstep. No, these were the sort that would sit and create a gloom over the land that did nothing to benefit Ben’s neverending torment. 

Cursing the skies above, he headed out down the unmarked path he’d memorized toward the main part of town, hoping he didn’t look too bent out of shape. He wanted to draw as little attention from his neighbors as possible. 

Luckily, no one noticed that he looked so down and out of it, and if they did, they didn’t care to approach him. He knew they knew who he was, he knew they whispered about him behind his back. They spoke about him as the stranger on the coast, and scarcely ever talked to him, but when they did it sent fear rushing through his veins as he remembered all the times that had led to someone growing close to him, growing close to him and then… leaving him before he was ready. 

That day, he got his meats and a few select vegetables in peace. The day was not due to turn any degree of interesting or violent until much later in the afternoon. Once he was home, he cooked himself a full meal, and ate it more quickly than he ought to have, but it wasn’t like he had to worry about such menial things. Ben couldn’t die. Eating too slowly, too quickly, or too little didn’t mean a thing. It simply felt good to eat, so he did. It was one of the few things that brought him joy— or at least, something resembling that— and he’d nearly let himself forget that again. He forgot a lot of things, though, so he wasn’t too worried about it. 

Upon finishing his meal, Ben looked out of his window onto the sea beyond. A low fog hung over the distant waves, and slowly began to crawl its way toward the shore. Making sure his sword was still sheathed at his side, he made for his front door, and walked out into the open air, taking in a deep breath as the cool breeze greeted his skin. 

Outside the weather was fair. It was cloudy, gloomy even, but not at all violent, and if he closed his eyes, finding that the wind and the sound of the waves crashing on the shore was rather calming actually. It was the perfect sort of day for a casual walk on the beach, and with that thought in mind, he briefly went back inside. The weather, though nice, was rather cold, and walking around out there without a cloak of some sort would be a grave mistake. It wouldn’t kill him, but he recalled how cold he’d been when he’d woken up that morning, and didn’t desire to feel that way again anytime soon. 

A few seconds later, he stepped outside again adorned in an old, black, wool cloak that he’d had for probably fifteen years too long, but couldn’t bring it within himself to abandon. His possessions were the only things that never left him, and each one had grown precious in his heart. 

The waves continued their pounding against the shore as he walked out onto the sand, and closer to the water’s edge, close enough that on occasion as he walked, the clear water lapped at his boots, wetting the tips of his toes ever so slightly. Little leaks of water sprang into the leather confines of his boots, making him feel a chill in his toes through the thick material of the stockings he wore, but he found he didn’t care much as he walked on aimlessly, one hand resting casually over the hilt of his sword, and the other swaying gently at his side. 

His walk was the most at peace he’d felt in ages, but it was interrupted when he saw another silhouette walking on the beach toward him. He hoped to keep himself hidden from the stranger, and a slight relief filled him as they drew closer to one another and he realized that the new person was a woman. Men tended to be more confrontational with him than women did, and for a moment he thought that meant he could get away with passing this person unnoticed. 

The woman he was passing, however, was no ordinary woman. It didn’t take him long to recognize hazel eyes which had bore into his in his nightmares for the better part of two centuries--nearly three since the first time they’d met-- along with a sharp jawline and freckles that came with the fire of sparks that stemmed from the violent collision of swords. His jaw fell open as they drew closer and he saw she’d scarcely changed over the centuries, except for that day she was wearing a long-sleeved blue dress beneath a green cloak. Her sword, though, was still strapped firmly to her side, and that fire was still burning in her stare as she recognized him in turn. 

“Ben,” she breathed as they suddenly both came to a halt. They stood about ten feet apart from one another now, so close, closer than they’d been in centuries but still so agonizingly far away. 

“Rey.” Her name left him in a rush, like the sight of her alone had knocked it from his lungs. She blinked at him for a moment, nodding slowly as she acknowledged her own given name, the title bestowed upon her at her birth so many uncountable years ago. 

They stared at one another for a moment, neither one of them quite remembering for those first few seconds just where they’d left off in their story. He was reminded of that last peaceful moment between them the last time they’d encountered one another. They’d stared at the sunset, and he wasn’t sure about her, but it was the first time he’d felt a true sense of belonging, like he was finally content after so much misery. He’d ruined their happiness all too quickly, and to that day he hated himself for it. He’d hate himself for centuries and centuries to come. 

This moment was so similar to that one as they stood face to face in the light of the afternoon’s cloudy sky. The wind whipped past them, causing what hair wasn’t pulled back to blow into her face, but the majority of it stayed put in her braid, one so similar to what he’d seen her wear a century ago. Ben’s face slowly bloomed into a smile as he looked at her. “It’s… it’s been a long time.”

“Yeah, it has,” she said, then the spell was broken, and he knew it was broken, for the disdain she’d held in her gaze when last they’d met was running rampant again. In an instant, her hand was on her sword, and she was holding it in front of her threateningly. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Ben snorted. “At ease, princess, I live here, my home is on the coast.”

“Ah, so you’ve stopped raiding innocent villages, then?” she asked, her sneer almost more menacing than the sharp, steel blade she had brandished, which was now pointing directly at his face. 

Shaking his head, Ben also withdrew his sword, not wanting to be outmatched. “I don’t fight anyone anymore. I’ve grown tired of it.”

They stared one another down for a few seconds more after that, neither one seeming sure what to make of this new, impossible reunion. So many emotions flooded him at seeing her again. He’d always wondered if their second meeting had been a fluke, if it had been possible for her to either start aging again without him or for someone else’s sword to allow her to meet her end, but no. She was there, standing right in front of him like he’d thought about— _ dreamed about _ —so many times over the years. 

“I’ve been waiting nearly two centuries for this,” she told him, twirling her sword once in her hand before she reached for the tie of her cloak. “So you’re about to make an exception.”

“Rey.” He didn’t want to fight her. He really didn’t, but he also didn’t want to just stand there while she hacked him to pieces either. With how much rage she had, he really wouldn’t put it past her to try. “I’m not going to fight you. I… I’m tired.”

“Well, I’m not, take off your cloak, let’s make this fair.”

Sighing discontentedly, Ben reached for the tie holding his cloak around his neck, and let the fabric fly into the wind, landing in the sand a little ways away, just shy of the water’s edge. Once it was gone, he aimed his sword at her, and gave her a firm nod. “It’s a fair fight now. Make your move.” He wondered if she could hear the resignation in his voice, if she noticed, or if she cared. 

The look on her face said she was all too aware of what he was feeling, and she felt it, too, but she’d had nearly two hundred years to let her rage fester. If he were being honest, he felt anger himself, anger for how she’d left him when she could’ve stayed and they both could have avoided so much heartbreak and misery. He supposed he couldn’t be surprised that their reunion had led them here, to this beach where they were now staring one another down the blades of their swords. 

“Why should I? You made the first move last time.”

“I seem to recall that was you,” he corrected her. “I didn’t want to fight, but you swung first.”

“If you’ll recall I won that time, too.”

“Don’t push your luck, Rey, you won’t win twice.”

“I’m willing to try,” she told him, then she charged forward, swinging her sword across the space between them in a strong, wicked arch that would’ve cut him in two if he hadn’t met it with an equally strong block. Sparks erupted from where they collided, and Ben almost smiled at her from over their locked blades before they broke away again and continued their vicious cycle anew. 

Rey fought twice as hard as she had the last time he’d seen her, likely having trained much more than he had over the years. He’d stopped several decades ago. Still he held his own against her pretty well, he liked to think. He moved against her in an overhead strike, forcing her backwards on the beach, her feet skidding in the sand as the wind began to pick up its pace around them. It was truly a wonder she did not trip on the fabric of her dress as it billowed in the air around her. 

Instead of falling, she moved like she was lightning, fast and quick, over before he was even sure he saw it, but Ben moved almost as quickly. He met her strike for strike, and even as their battle took them into the barest edges of the water, and the cold, southern ocean soaked their feet and the base of the fabrics they wore. Shivers ran up and down his spine, but he paid them no mind as he and Rey chased each other back and forth, and the waves did the same to their feet. 

The water splashed dramatically around them with each step, and by the time they were once again in a blade lock, Ben’s entire body was nearly soaked to the bone. Both of them pushed against the lock with all their strength, but neither seemed to budge, all they could do was stare at each other, lips pulled back in savage snarls. 

Ben took the opportunity to engage her in conversation. “It doesn’t have to be like this!” he cried. “We don’t have to be alone!”

“What? Just because neither of us can die we should stick together?” she asked, sounding bewildered as she shook her head. “We don’t get along, Ben, we never have. We’d make each other miserable.” She pushed out of the blade lock, and forced him to retreat down the beach. “Furthermore,”  _ grunt, slash, shout, _ “You used to pillage and plunder innocent villages, and I can’t forget that. I don’t care how lonely I get, it can’t be…”  _ slash. Shriek!  _ “It can’t be worth it just so that I’m… not alone…”

“It can!” he shouted, though he felt wounded by her words, a rage filling him that he hadn’t felt before. “We’re not different, Rey, we’re the same!”

“No we’re  _ not!” _ she cried passionately, narrowly missing his neck with her next strike. “We are not the same! We’ve never,”  _ slash, stab, miss.  _ “Been…” _ grunt, shriek, slash.  _ “The same!” she shouted, then she stabbed at him again at the same time as he lunged for her. At the exact same moment, their blades sank through one another’s guts, striking clean through the other side so that the swords stuck out of their backs covered in the crimson of their blood. 

Ben and Rey both cried out in pain at the same time, and he braced a hand almost involuntarily on her shoulder to keep himself standing. A vague part of him registered that she was doing much the same as they leaned against one another for support. For a moment the ocean roaring in his ears was all he could hear as he stared at the space between them, where his blade and hers both disappeared within the confines of the other’s clothes and flesh. He’d seen many men fall at the end of this sword, and yet he and Rey both still stood tall even if they were weakened by the pain shooting from their stomachs. 

He was breathing hard as he looked up at her face, dark brown meeting pure hazel as their heaving breaths echoed in his ears, creating harmonies with the crashing waves of the ocean they stood in. It felt like an eternity went by before she cried out, and pushed off from him, and he from her. The two of them staggered backward, both pinning their hands to the front of their wounds, and inspecting the red that stained their fingers. 

Ben’s vision was fuzzy at the edges, and while he knew it would just take him a few minutes to heal completely, in that moment he felt absolutely wretched. It was only fair, though, she was likely feeling the same way. His knees gave out a few seconds after that, and Ben collapsed at the water’s edge. The waves lapped at his legs as his head fell back against the sand, mercifully not landing on any rocks or hard shells as he groaned from the impact. He heard her fall as well not long after, and he turned his head to find her staring up at the sky with tears threatening to fall from her eyes. 

The wound to his middle ached, and he watched as the blood stemming from it slowly flowed its way into the ocean, washing itself out to sea to mix in with the salt it churned up in its currents. A few feet away, her hands similarly pressed to her wound as tears now flowed freely. Ben watched as her own current of blood made its way into the sea, and he watched as both pools of crimson mixed with the foam of the dying waves as they finished their treks onto the shore before promptly retreating back home. 

It was a perfect synchrony, a duet in its purest, but most merciless form. Proof that he had been right, that they truly were one in the same, and as much as she might have tried to deny it, they weren’t so different after all. 

He grunted as he propped himself on one elbow, and turned to face her, raising his bloodied palm toward her so she could see the ruby red shining in the dim light of day. “Do you see this?” he asked, and she didn’t respond, she simply blinked more tears from her eyes, and ran her thumb over the handle of her sword, which was slowly getting cleaned with each wave that passed over them. “We aren’t different.” His voice was trembling as he spoke, and a lump formed in his throat full of tears he hadn’t shed in ages. “We should both have died just now. Our bodies should be washed out to sea when the tide comes in, but we’re not, Rey, we’re alive.”

“I know,” she whispered softly, raising her own crimson stained palm to her face to inspect it curiously. “This is… this is impossible.”

“But it’s reality.” He shifted toward her a few feet, watching her tense visibly when he tossed his sword a ways up the beach, making sure the waves couldn’t reach it as he launched it as far as it would go given his lack of strength. She looked down at her own, then quickly followed suit, crying out at the pain it caused her from the still unhealed wound at her side. “It’s our reality.”

“Our reality is awful.”

Ben chuckled a little, then winced at the brief agony that wrought him, and nodded. “Yes, it is,” he said, then he sighed. “Rey, I’m sorry for what I did all those years ago. Truly, I am.”

Her face still pinched in a scowl. “That doesn’t take back what you did, Ben, you murdered people.”

“And what, you haven’t?” he asked, feeling that rage rise within him. “Which one of us came here today gleeful to try and murder the other? Because I can assure you, princess, it was not me.”

They fell into a moment of silence after that. Rey didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look away from him either. For a while they just stared at one another as the ocean continued washing them in cold, salt water, and thought over all that had happened to them— _ between  _ them. He’d met her three times now, and yet despite having spent a total amount of time around regular mortals, she was the face he conjured up the most. 

As his wounds from their fight closed and the blood ceased to flow into the water, Ben found himself more puzzled by her and their situation than ever. Why was it just them? Was there anyone else? If he’d found Rey… Surely it meant that they weren’t alone? And yet it had been centuries more without him finding anyone else besides her. If they were out there, they were too far away for him to find. Perhaps there were more like them throughout the European and Asian continents he’d heard about from travelers, but he could never know for sure. The only certainty he had in his life was her.

“We should probably get out of the water,” Rey said after a few minutes went by, then he nodded, and slowly the two of them stood up, brushing the sand off of their backs as they walked up the beach to grab their discarded cloaks. 

Ben shivered as the cool air blew past him, but as he wrapped his cloak around him, the thick fabric warmed him. After his was on, he watched her put on hers, and search the sand for her sword. His was laying a few feet from where she was searching, and he approached her cautiously, keeping his hands up as a gesture to let her know he wouldn’t harm her as he bent down to the sand to retrieve it. “Can’t find yours?” 

“No, it… it’s buried in the sand somewhere…” she replied, her voice sounding far off, eyes haunted by something he couldn’t see. “I can honestly leave it, I’ve got more on my ship.”

“Ship?”

“I’m leaving this afternoon, sailing across the channel. I’ve had enough of this place,” she told him, then she stood up off of the ground completely, and brushed off her skirts. “If I’m going to live this long, I might as well see some more of the world, shouldn’t I?”

Ben shrugged. “I can’t tell you what to do.”

“Ah, Ben, always so pleasant.”

He almost laughed, then he sighed. “But, Rey?”

She glanced over at him, the sword almost completely forgotten about. “Yes?”

“I… I don’t suppose we could part ways more amicably this time?” he asked, then when she didn’t answer him for a few seconds, he swallowed nervously, and offered her his hand. “Or not at all?”

“Ben,” she breathed, looking down at his extended hand hesitantly. He couldn’t gauge her expression like this. Was she considering his offer? It was unlikely, since they still hadn’t declared themselves allies. As far as words were concerned, they were still mortal enemies. 

“Please, say no if you wish, but even though we’ve not had the most pleasant of encounters, I… I only make this offer because I think you know as well as I do what it’s like to find companions in people who wither away before you can blink.” He took a step forward, letting his hand fall to the side as the conversation turned from a proposal to a discussion. “I think we both wish someone would stay for more than just a decade or two. I’m not saying you have to, but I’m offering you my friendship as best I can.” But just knowing she was out there somewhere, and that each time they parted didn’t have to mean goodbye was enough, was left unsaid. 

Rey’s breathing was shaky as she looked at him, then turned her gaze on down the beach to where he imagined her boat was waiting for her. She then faced him again, and sorrowfully shook her head. “No… Ben, I’m sorry, it’s… It’s too soon,” she told him. “I’m… I need more time away from… from all this…”

She’d already had nearly two centuries. “That’s fine,” he told her, then he sighed. “Well, if you have the time, I can get a fire going, you can warm up before you leave again.”

Again she looked hesitant to even consider his offer, but then she looked down at the completely damp dress she wore, and nodded. “Alright, I’ll at least stay for that,” she said, then Ben fought the urge to grin at her as he cocked his head in the direction of his cottage, and the two of them headed off toward the little stone building as the wind whipped at their clothes. Already Ben could feel himself drying off from their fight, and as he looked down, even the scarlet of his blood had dried onto his dark tunic, staining the fabric until he would be able to wash it later. 

Rey’s sword remained forgotten for the time being, though it would certainly come up for him later. But for the time being, as Ben invited Rey into his home, he couldn’t stop the onslaught of thoughts about how odd the whole thing was. After all that time, after all those years dreaming about her, and remembering the little time they’d spent together, Ben wasn’t quite used to the idea of actually having her there, much less under what seemed to be some sort of truce. 

Ten minutes after leaving the beach, they’d discarded their cloaks off to the side, and were both sitting in front of the fire warming up from the cold. They were as far apart as they could be while still sharing the fire’s warmth, and still shivering from the icy water that dampened their clothes. Still, it was the second time he’d ever seen a smile on her face as she watched the flames dance on the wood in front of them. The second time he’d ever seen her at any degree of peace. 

She was admittedly rather beautiful in the firelight, but there was a lingering awkwardness in the air between them preventing him from thinking on it too much longer. A part of him did linger on how the auburn flecks of her hair were caught in the light, providing the illusion that Rey was an ember, and if he knew then the spark she would ignite upon his life, he would have let himself look a little longer, but he didn’t. He instead trained his eyes straight ahead on the burning wood. 

“How long have you lived here?” she asked, then he turned to her again. 

“What?”

“How long has it been? How long until you leave again?”

Ben sighed, and scratched the back of his head as he thought through the last few years he’d spent in the little seaside cottage. “It’s been three years. I probably have another ten before I have to leave.”

“Have you thought about where you’ll go?”

“No,” he admitted. “I never do. I always just set off in a direction and hope I don’t run into any of my ghosts.”

Rey gave him a weak smile, and shifted her weight to one side, leaning on her left hand as she faced him. “Me too. Even the journey across the water was spontaneous. I just… I want to get away… I can’t be here anymore. I need to leave for at least a little while…”

He nodded in understanding. “I’m not ready to go just yet. But… I’m starting to sense there’s a pattern,” he said, then she quirked an eyebrow at him, her shields slowly coming down the longer they talked. “Because no matter what we do, where we move, where we go, we keep running into each other.”

“So what you’re saying is, even with no chance in hell, and a world that we cannot possibly determine the size of, we will see one another again?”

“That is exactly what I’m saying.”

Rey laughed a little, the sound stirring some feeling he’d thought long dead within his gut that he thought might be happiness, but it had been so long since he’d last felt it he couldn’t quite be sure. “So when I leave today, should I bother telling you goodbye?”

“I hadn’t thought you’d want to in the first place,” he said, the resignation once again audible in his voice. 

For a few seconds, they fell quiet again, the fire roaring in their ears like the ocean from earlier, and it felt for a moment like they were now waging a different battle. This fight though was purely internal, in which both of them were trying desperately to figure out where to take things from there, where to move the conversation. Mercifully, she made the first strike. “I didn’t, that was a joke,” she replied casually, almost too casually. “But maybe it is more of a… until next time than a goodbye.”

“Until next time,” he repeated, letting the words loop around in his head a few times before he nodded. “That sounds like us.”

Rey gave him what almost looked like a smile, but it was entirely with her eyes. Her face never moved, but in the brilliant hazel he saw it. There was a flicker of delight in her eyes, it was so small, so minuscule that he almost missed it, but he did see it. In spotting that he caught sight of the first sign of change between them, the first shift from their feud being placed on hold to permanently dissolving into something else. They would start with an uneasy alliance. 

But that was still to pass. That was still hiding in the shadows of the strange relationship between the two. For now, their truce was just that, a simple truce, one either of them could easily break and they could go right back to fighting again. It would seem though that they’d both seen sense in stabbing one another. There could never be a true victor when they fought, only more misery, and more suffering. 

“I think I am warm enough, now,” she told him, then she stood up off the ground, and grabbed her cloak off of the nearby floor, wrapping it around herself before she turned to face him again. “It’s time for me to leave.”

Ben felt an overwhelming sense of sorrow at hearing her words, but he didn’t say anything about it aside from, “Are you sure?” 

“I’m sure,” she said, then she took in a sharp inhale of breath, and closed her eyes. “But maybe someday.” She opened them, staring into his soul as she spoke again, “After all, we seem to be destined to run into each other over and over again.”

“How long do you think it’ll be this time?” Ben asked as he stood up and walked in front of her. “A century? Two?”

“Ben it was nearly two centuries this time, and you’ll want to leave this place eventually.” She held out a hand for his, and he looked at it in disbelief. “And that’s when you’ll see me again.” Rey moved her hand a few more inches toward him. 

The sight of her hand outstretched toward his reminded him of the first time they’d met, when they’d parted with a handshake just like this one. He laughed a little as he clasped his hand around her forearm, and she did the same to his. After a few seconds, his eyes met hers, and she gave him a gentle nod. “You’re remembering it, too, aren’t you? The first time we met.”

“Yes,” he replied, his grip tightening on her ever so slightly. “How often do you remember me?”

“I remember you often. Most days, in fact. Yours is one face I’ve never forgotten.” With that, she slowly pulled her arm away, and Ben stood frozen for a moment as she made her way toward his front door. Each of her footsteps was loud on the cold stone of the cottage floor, until she opened it, and the dying light of day flooded his home. 

Outside the clouds had started to clear, and the disappearing sun painted the clouds in rich shades of pink, orange, and purple amongst the backdrop of a fading blue. The breeze had picked up, and above them he could see the remaining clouds moving swiftly as they faded from existence far along the horizon. For a few seconds, he and Rey stood there staring at it, but then she turned around, and gave him a small smile. “Until next time?” she asked him. 

He returned her smile. “Until next time.” And with that, Rey gave him a soft little wave, and made her way out his door, and onto the beach below. He watched her go for a little while after that, feeling his heart skip a beat when she turned around at one point, and stared at him for a little while longer. Even from a distance he could see her dress and cloak billowing out into the breeze, could see the tiny little tear streaking down her cheek that was reflected by the sun’s rays. 

Upon blinking his own eyes, Ben realized they were filled with tears, too, but he didn’t bother with wiping them away as she continued to get smaller and smaller down the beach. It wasn’t until she had fully disappeared from his sight that he dared step outside, letting the breeze wash over his still damp clothes. Looking down, he could still see the crimson stain she’d left upon his tunic bold and loud as ever, and the only sign that she’d been there at all. 

Mindlessly, he walked out onto the beach, unsure where to go from there as he replayed the events of the day in his head. Despite having nearly four hundred years of life experience to dwell on, his time with her always seemed to take the forefront of his memories. Especially when it was so fresh like this for the first time in a long time. 

Ben was so lost in thought, that he didn’t notice when his foot made contact with something buried in the sand near the water, and he nearly fell face first into the beach. At the last second, he caught himself, and swore under his breath as he searched for the object that had nearly caused his fall. He found it a few seconds later in the form of something shining beneath the sand, and curiously bent down to grasp it. 

He brushed aside the sand grains burying it, and a small gasp escaped his lips as he realized what the object was. It was Rey’s sword, the one she’d dropped earlier when they’d laid at the water’s edge and thrown their swords cavalierly to the side as they came down from the battle high. Ben searched the sand for the hilt, then he let out a relieved exhale when he found it, pulling it free from the sand, and holding it proudly in the air. 

There was one more piece of evidence of their collision that day, and it stood erect in the form of her sword reflecting light from the sun. He stared at it mystified for a few seconds, twirling it in his hand before he took in the handle. For some reason there was an odd texture about it over one spot, and upon further inspection, he felt tears welling in his eyes as he saw her name inscribed on the side in chicken scratch.  _ Rey. _

Letting his tear fall onto his cheek, Ben stared after Rey into the sunset, knowing that even though she was gone for now, he would see her again, after all, he had to return her sword. Their story was far from over, and despite three centuries having gone by… they were still only at the beginning.


	5. France, Just Outside of Calais, 1349 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was told it was probably a good idea to post this now before hundreds of fics drop tonight, so here it is! A lot happens here, and I want to put a warning for some extra depressing shit as usual, but it's hopefully no worse than it usually is.

The next seventy six years before she saw him again were surprisingly busy. Something about the last encounter she’d had with Ben on the beach had changed her in a way she’d never expected, or maybe that was the change in scenery. Either way, after more than four hundred years, she finally felt like there was something on the horizon other than just an endless cycle of days and nights. 

It was something in the way they’d parted ways almost amicably the last time she’d met him. They’d sat together by a fire in  _ his  _ home together just talking, and for a few seconds, just a few wonderful seconds, Rey started feeling like one day things might one day have a better outlook for the two of them. They were destined for something other than constantly fighting and wounding one another, but whatever that was, it was still a long way off. 

After she left him, the journey across the channel had been surprisingly short, and she’d passed through a port town before heading inland for a while, making her home in a tiny little French town by the name of Niima. That town became her home for twenty years until an acquaintance had made a joke about how the years never seemed to wear on Rey’s face. Erring on the side of caution, she’d maybe left a little bit earlier than she needed to, and headed straight for the next town, which was a bit bigger. 

She spent the next fifteen in that second town just outside of Paris occupying her time actually learning new things. In the past she’d offered her service as a soldier, fighting to protect the innocents who could entirely die from a war they didn’t ask to be a part of since she was untouchable by the blade of a sword. In the present, she’d started learning how to save lives in other ways. As was the usual, she’d had to disguise herself as a man, wearing the most shapeless clothing she could muster, and deepening her voice whenever she had to speak to avoid the suspicion that she was a woman. In some places, that was a punishable by death offense, and since Rey couldn’t die… that would be a bit of a problem.

In her new town, Rey learned the trade of a physician, aiding the sick and dying as best she could, though she knew that their abilities were limited. She could only hope that one day they would develop the tools needed to actually make a difference, but still she’d grown numb to watching her patients die. It wasn’t exactly any different from all the death she’d seen before. 

Maybe one day they’d stop and start living the full lives she so desperately wanted. Wishful thinking, really. 

With a lifetime to learn the physician’s craft, though, Rey became an expert as the decades passed, and once she started moving away from Paris she became thoroughly skilled at what she did, earning a lower death rate amongst her patients for her work. At least, she did when she managed to find work. With her immortality, a low profile was of the highest order. If anyone were to discover the truth of what she was, her long lifespan could become a more severe hindrance than it already was as she was put through misery for all eternity. 

So she did what she could, treating the sick and wounded and disappearing before they could even thank her. She was a ghost in the night, there and gone before one could even blink, prepared for any and all situations that could have arisen to hinder her on her mission. 

Nothing could have prepared her for when the world fell sick. To the west of the coastal English territory of Calais, Rey had settled into another city, Ahch To, and started keeping a quiet life there. She’d been there for no more than two years before the illness started spreading its way through the streets like a disgusting fog. No matter what she did, how hard she tried to treat it, the patients almost always died within days. The longest anyone had lived was four days, and they spent every single one of them writhing in misery. 

She couldn’t explain it, there was simply nothing she could do but try and make those people comfortable while she watched as one by one, they all succumbed to the inevitable. It was a year or two into this madness, when more than half of the town had fallen ill and been burned or buried, that she finally saw him again. 

The day was bleak and it was barely even dawn, a thunderstorm rolling in from the ocean miles beyond causing chaos outside of Rey’s small home. Well, it was actually larger than most homes she’d lived in, given that she’d taken it off the hands of one of the now dead who’d once lived there. It had hurt her to take what wasn’t hers, the family that lived there had been kind to her, but they were dead now, and as a physician, she needed a place to work. And this has always been the way she’d found homes, stealing from the dead. It was probably a heinous crime, but she couldn’t die. If she couldn’t go to hell, she only felt a twinge if guilt for it. 

The house boasted arches over its windows, built from stones not unlike the ones composing the pavement in the city, and windows that needed to be cleaned badly, but still allowed the outside world some visibility. Most importantly, it kept the house and whoever was living out their final days in it warm and whatever degree of cozy one could find despite their skin turning red and blackening in places. Probably not much. 

The morning Rey would reunite with Ben thunder was shaking the house on its foundations, but what woke her was the sound of her patient crying out from the first floor as she too was awakened, her groans drifting their way up into her ears. She quickly sat up and threw the covers back, grabbing her cloak from out of a nearby wardrobe on the far side of the room before she strode down the stairs to make sure the groans weren’t caused by a the woman dying. There had been nights where she’d gone to bed and half the room had passed on in the night, and she’d wake to stare down at the bodies in both pity and envy. At least their suffering was over; they no longer had to endure their pain or loneliness. 

Rey’s misery and eternal solitude on the other hand remained endless. She knew she had a way out of it, too, all she had to do was wait for Ben to inevitably wander into her life again and ask him to stay, but there was still a part of her she knew would be too stubborn to accept his offer. 

That morning though she wasn’t thinking about Ben, no she was thinking of the one patient she had downstairs, a young woman who’d come to her home two days earlier complaining of a fever and chills, and quickly started getting worse. Jessika had been able to stand longer than most, and for the majority of the first day, Rey had her stirring some of the herbs she tried using in order to make some vain attempt at curing them. By dawn on the second, she could barely move, and Rey had resorted to letting her rest in a cot while she periodically tried to give her water. It seemed pointless, but she had to try. 

Rushing down the stairs she was immediately greeted by the sorrowful sight of Jess leaning over her cot clutching her stomach as the pain in her abdomen grew intense, the sound of her groans no longer phasing Rey, who’d grown used to it after the years of listening to the various noises of the deathly ill. Her soul wasn’t quite gone enough for her not to feel sympathy as she rushed to the young woman’s side, stroking her back until she seemed to feel better, and finally rolled over onto her back staring miserably up at her physician. 

“I’m sorry, I woke you,” Jess muttered quietly.

“No, don’t be,” Rey insisted as a bolt of lightning illuminated the house, the ensuing thunder shaking the foundations firmly. “I was already awake.” It was a lie, but Jess offered her a small smile in return for it, and all she could do was try and ease her suffering. The tall tale had done the job. 

Jess groaned, then she laid her head back down on the pillow, and Rey grabbed the edges of her blankets, doing her best efforts to keep her warm as she inspected the swollen node on the side of her neck. It looked no better than it had the day before, all red and swollen and blackening in some places. As usual, Rey knew it was inevitable, her patient would likely die in hours, and there was damn near nothing she could do, except pray for a miracle. 

She looked over at the nearby fireplace, noting that all that remained of the flames she’d stoked to life before heading to bed were a few smoldering embers. A quiet hum left her lips, then she was on her feet heading out toward the back of the house where she kept a collection of firewood. This routine reminded her of the one she’d had when she still lived in her family home, the one she’d had when she’d met Ben for the first time. It filled her with an odd sense of nostalgia for a time when the world wasn’t suffering quite so much as she was, as she knew he probably was too wherever he was. 

She hoped he had made a decent life for himself without her, she truly did. 

As Rey set more firewood above the embers, she thought back on what she’d done over the last seventy years. Sure, she’d made herself into more than just a damn good fighter who could never die, and maybe she wasn’t quite as sad as she used to be, but that underlying feeling of always being alone was still everpresent, still haunting. The world’s illness only made things worse. Instead of getting decades with people, she got days. It was days at most before each of them inevitably left her to become nothing more than a hollowed husk of who they used to be. They were more fleeting than they’d ever been before, and her loneliness was somehow still gaining strength. 

It was the cruelest thing she could fathom the universe doing to a person, what it was doing to her and Ben, and all she could do was try to endure it. 

A few minutes later, the fire was lit, illuminating the room in a soft orange glow that fought out the darkness of the vicious storm outside. Rey rubbed her freezing hands together in front of it, then she turned back to Jess, listening to her quiet, pained cries that left her lips as she tried desperately to rest. Unfortunately, the universe wouldn’t let her, and the aches and pains resonating within her body clutches her tightly within the waking world. 

There was nothing she could do, in all her training, her seventy years as a well respected, talented physician, she’d never seen something like what tore through the countryside in the modern age. Still, she had to try and do something. She moved to crawl over to her sickened patient, but a sudden loud series of three taps—more like morbidly loud bangs—slammed onto the smooth wood of her front door, only just audible over another boom of thunder. 

A small part of her wanted to ignore it, but the overwhelming majority had a rule of never ignoring that door. She’d become the town doctor upon the plague’s beginning—figuring her anonymity could be spared a few years as the people that met her always died off long before they could see she wasn’t aging or dying— and people knew this house now. They knew what it was. This was where people came to die. 

Rey closed her eyes briefly in resignation as she processed what the knocks—and the ones that immediately ensued—went. Someone was sick out there—sick and in the rain, which was a truly terrible combination. 

Gathering her skirts, she raised the hood of her cloak and hurried to the door, and threw it open to see three hooded strangers standing outside her door, their cloaks sleek with the dripping water of the downpour they’d trekked through to get there. Barely even giving herself time to process what they looked like, she quickly ushered them inside. “Come inside, it’s freezing out here!”

The trio didn’t protest, the first rushing past her on their way into the house, nearly shoving her in his wake. She presumed they were a he, at least, she’d certainly never met a man that tall, but their clothes did not make for easy identification. It still didn’t surprise her when the stranger took off her hood, and revealed a pretty face with blue eyes and hair that was nearly as pale as she was, but touched ever so slightly with gold. “Ben, hurry he doesn’t have much time,” she said with a crisp, clear voice that confirmed her gender without having to ask. 

Not that she was going to anyway, the Ben in question—whom she’d only just noticed was the sole reason the shortest man of the three was standing as he slumped against him—gave the woman a nod, then he tightened his grip around the second stranger’s waist, and brought him into the house. A part of Rey wondered if this was her Ben; if this was when after seventy six years, they were finally meeting again. She didn’t have time to ponder it as she stepped around the two men, and closed her door to the raging storm outside before turning back to them, and leading them into the room where she’d left Jess. 

Her other patient stirred as she led her new one over to the cot on the other side of the room, and instructed his companions to lay him down on it. She then told them to wait while she walked into the other room to grab the blankets she always kept in another room, washed and cleaned thrice between patients as she prayed that maybe just this once someone wouldn’t die on her. 

Blankets in hand, she returned to the room to lay them over her patient, only just barely catching snippets of conversation from the man and woman on the far side of the room as she inspected her new patient. He was awake, but he was groaning in pain and clutching his stomach undoubtedly from how much it all hurt him, and she could see several swelling sores all around his neck, the discoloring disappearing beneath his shirt and rising up onto his face. Whoever the man was, he could barely move, and Rey knew instantly that he was not long for this world just by looking at him. 

Sighing disappointedly, she stood up, and strode over to his friends, whose whispers ceased the moment she walked up to them. “How long has he been like this?”

They looked at one another before they looked at her. “A day,” the man’s deep, familiar voice answered her, and maybe it was just some form of wishful thinking, but was it possible that in all this death she’d finally found herself once more in the company of the only man who couldn’t? His name was Ben, after all, and Rey never heard the same voice twice. Once she left a place, all its people became were ghosts. 

She was so lost in her damn thoughts about Ben, it took her far longer than it should have to register the fact that they’d let their friend stay that way for _a day_ before finally deciding to seek help. “You mean he’s been suffering for a day and the two of you only just now decided to-“

“We’ve been traveling,” the woman explained. “We’ve been trying to find someone, we left home the moment we figured it out.”

Rey looked at them apprehensively, then she sighed, and stepped back. “You need to leave, then, this house is full of disease, you’ll only get sick yourself if you stay.”

“We’re not leaving him,” the blonde insisted, stepping forward, and crossing her arms over her chest. “He’s family. He’s like a brother to me.”

“Well, he’s going to get you killed,” Rey protested. “Please, your life is short enough as it is, I don’t want—“

The other man, Ben, interrupted them then, stepping between them to place his hands on his companion’s shoulders. “Gwen, she’s right, you should go.”

“Are you mad?”

“ _ Gwen, _ ” he hissed, and this time it wasn’t a suggestion, it was an order. She stared at him for another minute though, her blue eyes piercing through his beneath the cloak hood for what felt like ages before she finally gave him a nod in time with a rumble of thunder. 

“Fine,” she muttered in response, shoving past him. “I’ll wait for you at the inn we passed on the way. Bring him there  _ alive _ , Ben.”

Ben took in a shaky breath, one which she could hear even from this small distance. “You know I can’t promise that.”

The woman’s voice broke as she reached up to place a hand over one of his. “ _ Try. _ ”

All he gave her in response was a nod, then she flipped her hood back over her head, and stomped out Rey’s front door in a fit of despair and rage. The storm outside howled loudly for a few seconds, then the door slammed shut, and at last, she was alone with the man—with Ben. 

A moment of silence passed between them before he finally turned around, and she saw a very familiar jawline poking out from beneath the shadows of his hood. She threw her own back immediately, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that this was her Ben, the one person she could always count on seeing again, whether or not their encounter was amicable. His breath left him in a rush at the sight of her, and he too threw back his hood, revealing that he was exactly who she’d thought. 

“Ben.”

“Rey.” He stepped forward, laughing dryly as he leaned against her wall. “Of course I would run into you now.”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” she admitted, not moving from where she stood, unsure of how to proceed from there. A part of her had yearned to see him again, sure, but she also dreaded the encounter because she wasn’t sure how  _ he  _ would feel about seeing her again about the way she’d left him the last time. They may have reached some sort of truce after brutally stabbing one another, but that didn’t mean everything was sunflowers and sunny skies between them. No, they had three centuries of antagonistic behavior toward one another so far, and while she could see it turning around eventually, there was no reason for that time to be now. 

“So you are the town physician?”

“I am,” she said quietly, then she scoffed, feeling a small lump growing in her throat for the first time since the whole thing had started. “Not that it helps much. Almost everyone who has passed through here hasn’t walked out alive.”

“My friend?”

“What about him?”

Ben pushed himself from the wall, taking another step toward her as he swallowed nervously. “What are his odds?”

For a brief second, she considered telling him a lie, telling him there was a chance for his friend to get better, but she’d never lied to Ben before, and she wasn’t about to start doing it now. Well, technically, she had lied once, but this was a different circumstance than that. “He’ll be dead by sundown,” she told him bluntly. “I’d be amazed if he made it past noon. He’s… He’s too far gone. I’m sorry.”

There was a calm on his face she knew well, a resignation sinking his shoulders that was all too familiar in the reflection of mirrors, one which signified that he’d already processed the news and decided he was content - well, maybe not content, but not upset about it like he ought to be. He was used to that kind of news. Both of them had been given centuries of death to adjust to it before the onslaught of the plague, after all. 

“Thank you for your honesty,” he said, then he started to walk past her, clearly intending to head out of the house and into the night, but she reached out a hand to stop him, capturing his wrist in her hand. 

“Stop.”

“Why?”   


“You should stay with him. Don’t let him die alone,” Rey replied, then she took in a deep breath. “Ben…”

Ben’s eyes widened a little as he looked back at her, and yet again they argued without words before he finally gave her a nod, and walked over to his friend. Her arm fell limply at her side as she watched him kneel down next to the young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty three years of age, younger than she’d been the last time she aged. People died young all the time, but she’d never seen it on such a scale like it was then. 

She’d never seen his face more soft than it was when he knelt by the young boy’s side, and if she were to look closer she would’ve seen Ben’s eyes misting over as he took his hand. Rey didn’t listen to the conversation, though, it wasn’t hers to hear. Instead she walked into her kitchen, preparing a few herbs to at least make some attempt to ease the boy’s pain as he passed. 

In the background she could hear the faintest murmurs from Ben and his friend as they talked, the friend sounding worse and worse as the seconds passed on. Rey started to think that even her hope for the boy to live till noon was hopeful by the sound of him, his pained groans growing weaker by the minute. By the time she finished preparing the herbs, they were so quiet she almost feared the boy was already gone. 

Feeling a pinprick of fear trickle into her veins, Rey took the mixture she’d made in a stone bowl, and slowly walked back into her main room where Jess and the boy lay on cots. Ben was still holding his friend’s hand in both of his, their heads bowed in silent conversation as they talked. 

For the next few seconds she hung in the background, almost involuntarily opening up her ears to the conversation as she watched and waited for them to be ready for her. 

“I’m not scared,” the boy said weakly, though he didn’t sound like he believed it. “Ben, I’m tired of fighting.”

“Dopheld, you haven’t even started to fight,” Ben’s voice was breaking as he buried his face in their joined hands. “You know what I have seen. Just hold on a little longer, keep fighting. You’re stronger than this.”

“But I’m not…” a weakened groan left him, and he sighed. “Just tell me, am I… going to become... one of… one of your ghosts when... I’m gone?”

The pain in Ben’s eyes was raw when she looked into them. Like her, he had undoubtedly been burying every loss beneath a shield of resignation for the last few centuries, and scarcely ever faced his demons except to snap on occasion and rage for hours on end. This wasn’t rage, though, this was sorrow in its purest form. For the first time, a little bit of the grief they felt was visible, leaking through the cracks and showing in the tears welling in his eyes. 

“I don’t know,” Ben answered, but they both knew damn well he meant  _ yes.  _ Dopheld would become a ghost, another haunting to keep him up at night. He knew it, she knew it, and the cruel universe knew it above all. 

The boy gave Ben a weak smile. “You’re a good liar,” he told him, reaching a weakened hand over their three hand hold. “I almost believed you.”

“Dopheld…”

“Go get Gwen, I… want to see her... one last time... before I go.”

Ben nodded, and immediately moved to stand, when Rey cleared her throat. “I can do it,” she interrupted, and again those sad, dark eyes turned in her direction. “Just tell me where she is, I know the town well.” He looked like he was about to protest, then Rey shook her head, and bent down, resting a hand over her shoulder. “You should be with him.”

His gaze swapped between her and his friend for a moment before he finally let out a pained grunt and cocked his head in the direction of the door. “The inn at the end of the street.” She didn’t need any further command to know he had given her his consent. Without another moment’s hesitation, Rey pulled up the hood of her cloak, and marched outside into the depths of the violent storm, letting the wind whip her clothes around as she was pelted with tiny droplets of rain. 

She could barely see a damn thing save for the candles lighting the windows of most of the buildings that lined the street. Other than that, she was almost completely blind, able to see naught but the sheets of rain pouring down from the sky. Occasionally she was aided by lightning, somehow always bitterly reminded of her earliest memory, of the first moment she could recall from her ridiculously long life. 

It was a miracle that she made it without falling over at least once, knocking on the door to the inn three times before she saw a face that wasn’t the innkeeper, but the woman, Gwen, already standing behind the door. “Is he gone?”

“No, not yet, but soon,” Rey told her, then she gestured to her hood. “Shield yourself, we need to hurry.”

Gwen didn’t need to be told twice. At a faster speed than most humans moved, the taller woman shoved on her hood, and followed Rey out into the storm again. It was easily one of the most volatile ones she’d ever seen, lightning striking something every other minute so that the ground was almost a constant earthquake of thunder. Still, despite nature’s best efforts, they made it back to her home in one piece, bursting through the door completely breathless as they were finally safe from nature’s clutches once more. 

Or so they thought.

When they walked inside the house was deathly quiet, the sounds of the groaning, dying patients completely gone, as if they’d never been there. A sinking feeling of dread settled in the pit of her stomach, the only sound she could hear in the tiny home was that of her and Gwen’s feet as they quietly walked across the floor toward the main area of Rey’s house. It only grew stronger the closer they got to Ben and Dopheld, and while she wasn’t exactly one to believe in anything psychic, or premonitions, Rey was an immortal, and knew that anything was possible based on the fact that she still drew breath. This was one such event where the emotional impact was so intense it almost seemed to blow back through time to before it even happened, creating that nauseating pit in one’s stomach that let them know they were about to experience some state of being they hadn’t yet known.

That effect had been experienced by Rey only three times in her entire life. It had been there in the moments before the lightning strike, when she’d fought her way out through a storm not unlike the one she’d just walked through moments ago, and her life had been altered irreparably. Again she saw it just before she met Ben for the first time, but in that instant it hadn’t quite been as negative, as it carried the promise of a someday, but it had yet to convey its meaning to her. 

The third time was the moment she and Gwen walked into her living area, and found Ben holding Dopheld in his arms, sobbing quietly into the boy’s hair because he thought no one was looking to see him in his agony. It was when the latter of the two rushed forward with a cry of, “ _ No!” _ that came far too late as she knelt by Ben’s side, taking the boy’s sickly face into her hands as her face fell, and she was completely stricken with grief.

In all three hundred years she had known him, Rey had never seen Ben Solo cry. She’d seen him in pain, she’d mortally wounded him twice, after all, but never in her long existence had she ever witnessed tears streaming down his face at the sight of a fresh loss. Never had she seen such anguish crossing his features, which he quickly tried to hide as he wrapped an arm around Gwen, letting her bury her face in his chest as she too cried tears to drown out the rain from the storm. He closed his eyes as he turned his face toward the ceiling, his lips moving as if her were uttering a quiet prayer, though she wasn’t sure why. As far as she knew, he wasn’t still religious, but she also knew she hadn’t ever bothered to ask.

Unable to watch the scene any longer, Rey walked away into her kitchen, trying her absolute hardest to block out the sounds of Ben and what seemed to be his new family mourning their loss. They had only been in her home for about an hour at most, but already they’d seen the extent of the suffering that occurred within its walls in full. She fought back a tiny sniffle of her own as she walked back into the kitchen, hearing the faint voice of the other immortal assuring his friend that it was going to be okay. 

His strength seemed to be slowly coming back into him through his voice, and while they still were formally enemies—their truce had technically been dead since she walked away from him on the beach all those years ago— her sympathy for him tore through the thick layers she’d built around her soul like a knife through flesh. She knew his suffering too well, and what it was like when those protective shields they wrapped around themselves broke. It wouldn’t have surprised her at all if that was the reason she kept refusing to let him get close to her. If everyone else faded away, who was to say that he wouldn’t eventually do the same?

It was a good while before Rey walked back into that room, and decided to check on Jess, who hadn’t exactly been looking too well either the last time she had seen her. She kept her eyes downcast as she walked past, Ben, Gwen, and Dopheld’s body, not wanting to interrupt them as she tended to her other patient. 

Jess was sleeping, but seemed to be doing so peacefully. Her breathing was even, chest rising and falling silently with only the occasional pained whimper. When Rey felt her forehead, she felt a relief rush through her at the realization that her fever had broken, and she was finally beginning to cool down. She’d have to watch out for her over the next several days, but it certainly looked possible in ways that it hadn’t before that the young woman who’d come to her home with no family and no hope for survival might eventually make it out alive. 

The relief was followed by guilt, though as she looked over at Dopheld’s body, still held tightly in the clutches of his friends as they mourned. She watched as Ben’s gaze finally moved away from his friends, and toward her, a tear streaking down his cheek as he let go of his friends, and slowly rose to his feet. Her eyes remained firmly on his as he walked over to her, and knelt by her side. “What happens to him now?”

“Ben, are you sure you want—“

“Tell me!” His voice was almost a shout, anger briefly contorting his already pained features. He seemed to regret lashing out at her instantly, though, and he took in a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, you know as well as I do the extent of a loss like this. You know what it does, how it feels.” He closed his eyes at this, though she was unsure whether it was in denial or acknowledgement. “But you should bury him…or burn him. It’s up to you.”

Ben nodded slowly, then he swallowed back what she knew to be a lump in his throat, and looked down at the ground, his gaze more sorrowful than she’d ever seen it. Unsure what compelled her to do it, Rey reached out, and rested a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her then, eyes switching between looking at her own and the place she was touching him. “I know we’ve never exactly gotten along, but you have my sympathies for your loss.”

He scoffed, then stood up abruptly, her hand falling limply to her side. “They won’t bring him back,” he grumbled as he walked away, heading back toward Gwen. “They never bring  _ any  _ of them back.”

Rey looked after him sympathetically, wishing despite everything that had gone down between them that she could free him of his pain, but she couldn’t. He would be feeling Dopheld’s loss for centuries. She watched as he talked with Gwen for a moment, the two of them whispering quietly and occasionally looking back at Rey. Another several minutes went by before they finally both stood, leaving their friend’s body on the cot before stepping forward. The blonde took in a deep breath. “We’ll do it.” 

Rey gave them a nod. “I’ll help you with anything I can, but I need to see to my other patient first and foremost.”

“Of course,” Gwen replied, then she and Ben turned around, and continued to mourn their friend in silence. 

For the most part, Rey left them alone. She occasionally watched as they grieved, but the majority of the day was spent treating Jessika, who seemed to actually be getting a little bit better by the hour. It was rare, but once in a blue moon a patient walked into her doors and managed to walk out alive. In the wake of Dopheld’s death, it seemed that somehow, a small miracle had managed to shine its way through. 

They waited until the storm passed just before sundown to burn the body—Ben has mentioned to her that had been what his friend wanted, claiming the young rogue wanted there to be no trace of him left when he died—walking out into the clearing behind Rey’s house, and building the world’s worst pyre before Ben laid his friend’s wrapped body over it, and stepped back. She watched his face as he took the torch they’d lit from Gwen’s hands, and walked forward again, looking hesitantly down at the body before he tapped the torch to the wood. He waited until it caught fire before he rejoined Gwen and Rey, though the former of the two was standing off to the side a ways sniffling as she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. 

It was a tragic moment, but it gave Ben and Rey the perfect opportunity to talk amongst themselves for the first time in seventy years. At least, she hoped it would, but she was still so stunned from all that had happened that she didn’t know what to say. 

“I met him five years ago,” Ben told her, and she didn’t look at him, but she didn’t need to in order to know his eyes were on the fire still, and not on her. “Him and Gwen. We got into a skirmish when I finally crossed over the channel. They were the first people I met.”

Rey continued to say nothing, just listening as Ben told her the story of the people who had become his family. “They both managed to beat me. I guess it had been too long since the last time I fought, but when they realized I couldn’t die… they decided they wanted me as an ally. For the past few years, we’ve been traveling the countryside getting into trouble we didn’t need to get into.

“At least, we were until… all this… then we isolated ourselves. I tried to keep them away from everything, but…” His voice broke. “I failed.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I should’ve known better. I know what happens when you let them get close.” She looked at him then, watching as he blinked a tear from his eye, and it fell lazily down onto his thick, black tunic. “But…” He glanced over at Gwen, who was silently mourning as she watched the fire burn. “Somehow, they found a way past all of my shields, and for a while I forgot about everything. I found a family again, for the first time in… I cannot even remember how long.

“He was like a brother to her, but he was one to me, too. And now he’s just…”

“Another ghost?”

“Yeah,” he said in tandem with another faint sob, then he looked down at the ground, and put his head into one of his hands. “I was such a fool.”

Rey shook her head. “No, you weren’t,” she told him, then she turned in his direction. “Ben, those last few years… They were good, weren’t they? You remembered what it was like to smile, to laugh, to experience some sort of joy, even despite everything you’ve been through?”

“I did.”

“Then, I’d say it was worth it.” She paused for a moment, unsure of how to phrase what she meant after that. “We need those moments, you and me. As much as it pains us to admit it, sometimes we really shouldn’t be alone.”

“Funny to hear you say that,” he snapped, then he winced. “I’m sorry, that was rude of me, you didn’t deserve it.”

“It’s fine.”

Ben made a noise that sounded vaguely like a grunt as he stared out at the burning body of his friend. “It isn’t. You… you’ve been trying to help me… and you did not have to… but you did.”

“The last time we met, we skewered one another on the beach,” she told him, and the corners of his mouth twitched upward a little at the reminder. Odd how they both seemed to almost look back on it fondly, as if it were something good. Perhaps it was then that Rey started to become aware it was a turning point in their relationship. Maybe then she’d finally realized that the tide had started to shift away from hatred, but it was shifting so slowly, she couldn’t see it. Things were going to change between them at a pace so agonizingly slowly, that they couldn’t even tell they were moving in the first place. 

“We did,” he answered her. “I don’t think we ever determined who won that fight.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, then she let out a deep breath. “Ben, what I’m trying to say is… When you first came in, I had half a thought about being angry, but… I saw the devastation on your face. I knew you cared about that boy. I couldn’t have continued our feud today even if I wanted to.”

“You don’t want to?” he asked, and she couldn’t help but notice the hopeful twinge that had developed in his voice. 

She stepped a little bit closer to him. “No. Not right now, at least. I’m sure I will find some reason to be angry with you eventually, but today…” Rey’s eyes fell back on the burning body resting atop the pyre. “Today, we are at a truce again.”

Ben’s lips parted in a half-impassioned grin, then his face fell again. “You’ve clearly made good use of your time since I last saw you. Certainly much better than I have.”

“I figured anything had to be better than just wallowing in self-pity. You were right, I was tired of fighting… So I turned to healing people. Fat lot of good it’s done, though. This sickness… It kills almost everything it touches…”

“Everything but you.”

“As usual,” she replied, then she turned her face to the sky, staring up at the clouds drifting by slowly overhead. “It has made the sorrow and loneliness even worse. I can no longer ignore it the way I used to.”

Ben looked as though he were deep in thought when she next caught him in her field of vision, though his stare wasn’t blank, it was contemplative, curious, as if he were genuinely pondering something. “I have an idea, but I don't think you will like it.”

“What is it?”

“You turned your eternal life into something good,” he said, explaining to her everything she already knew in the way that told her he was just using it to tell her something else important. “I want to do the same. Rey…” He turned his entire body toward her, and held out a hand. “Teach me what you do. I want to help.”

“Ben…”

“ _ Please. _ ”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I want to at least try.”

She looked at his hand for a moment, uncertainty no doubt projected from her eyes as the seconds passed. For a while, they stood there like that, as apprehensive about the encounter they were about to embark on as they had been the last couple of times he’d proposed it. But those times he hadn’t been asking her for the betterment of others, those times had been about them, and them alone. This was different, and something about the idea of not being alone while the disease spread itself throughout the earth made it seem like a good idea. 

They both needed to not be alone, at least for a little while, so Rey gave him a nod before she finally took his hand. “I’ll do it.”

“Thank you.”

“And we are going to ride this out… even if we’re the only ones left standing when it’s gone,” she said, then she turned away, still holding onto his hand. “Together.”

With that, they stood in silence, staring at the burning body of his friend as the wind blew past them, and the day turned into night. The fire burned orange and yellow well after the stars above did their nightly routine of twinkling aimlessly, and they stood there, hands joined for the first time in partnership, unaware of the turning of the tide. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Definite historical inaccuracy in this chapter since in a bunch of research I did, I couldn't find any evidence that they actually burned any victims' bodies, but well, they definitely buried them in like mass graves in some places. Still, I figured Ben and friends never do anything conventionally given how they lived and I like the drama of the fire. Sorry for my sin. Also we'll be sticking around this period for a hot minute, so hopefully I'll be able to do it justice.


	6. 1349-1351 CE, France, just outside of Calais

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual a warning for all the death and hopefully minor historical inaccuracies.

The next morning, Ben woke in an unfamiliar bed, gasping for breath from yet another nightmare as he sat up bolt-right. He struggled to find breath as his knees bunched up to his chest, which was covered in a thin sheen of sweat that cooled him significantly as his blankets fell from his body. 

After all that time, he thought he would’ve grown used to the nightmares. They’d plagued him for centuries now to the point where he’d started to grow numb to their impact, but in this nightmare, which truly felt more designed to scare him than to haunt him, he’d finally seen something different. 

In his dreams that night he’d seen the pyre they’d burned Dopheld on, the orange flames that licked skyward and flickered violently in the fading light of day. There was more to it than simply that, though, for as he looked closer, he realized the body wasn’t wrapped, allowing him a good look at the body that was lying there in his friend’s place. 

It was Rey.

For whatever reason, in his dreams he surged forward, moving at that sluggish pace one only ever moved at in dreams or in deep water as he ran toward her, screaming out her name. Despite the fact that she must’ve finally been dead, Ben fought tooth and nail through the flames, retrieving Rey’s smoldering form in his arms as he hurriedly batted lingering hints of flame away. 

Not that he needed to. She was unharmed by the fire, her hair, her skin, and her admittedly rather beautiful face were untouched, as if she’d been lying peacefully in bed. The only sign that she’d been in the fire in the first place was her dress that was torn and blackened, exposing bits of spot covered skin all throughout her body. Ben didn’t look at that, though, his attention was solely on the woman he was cradling in his arms, the woman who up until yesterday had been his enemy. 

“Rey,” he breathed, then her eyes slowly opened, and she stared blankly at him for a few seconds before she reached up to rest a hand on his cheek. 

“Ben,” she said in response, and the smile she gave him was so genuine, so soft, that for a moment, he finally felt an emotion long neglected by time, briefly touched and then shattered by Dopheld, and all of a sudden sneaking its way back in. All he could think to do in response was return it, but before he could say anything else, she disappeared from his arms, and suddenly he was alone again. 

He called out her name, as if somehow that would conjure her back to him, then he stood up, searching his surroundings for her frantically as he shouted for her again and again. Panic filled his body as he heard nothing but overwhelming silence, even the fire that still burned brilliantly on the empty pyre was silent, adding to the terror of the immense quiet. He couldn’t even hear the breeze. 

Ben’s breathing came quick as he began to run back toward Rey’s house, only to find it gone, too, the whole city had suddenly gone as if it was never there. The cobblestone streets, the many, empty houses, the mass graves, and everything in between were all gone. There was nothing but Ben and the too quiet fire, everything else was empty, barren, and completely devoid of life. 

It had been that moment that made Ben snap to reality, waking him up cold and shivering as he rested his head back against the wall, remembering where he was. 

The year was 1349. He’d come to a town just off the coast of France in an attempt to save his dying friend. His friend had died, but his other friend, sleeping soundly in an inn down the street, was alive. He was safe, and most importantly— though he wasn’t sure why this last detail had earned such a jurisdiction— he was finally not completely alone when he woke up. 

That last fact was especially proven true when a soft tap sounded from the wooden door of his bedroom, and his attention was quickly stolen. “Hello?” he called, proud that he managed to keep down the quiver that threatened his voice. 

The door opened, and on the other side, he first saw a flickering candle, wax dripping lazily into a little basin held in the hand of the woman who had been his only constant for three centuries now. Rey was looking down at him with concern in her eyes as she stepped into the room, and closed the door behind her before setting the candle down on a nearby table. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked confusedly. 

“I heard you scream.”

_ Oh.  _ He hadn’t known he’d screamed from his nightmare, but he supposed it explained the slight hoarseness he felt in his voice. “I’m sorry I woke you,” he breathed, running a hand awkwardly through his hair as he sat up straighter, allowing his legs to lazily collapse onto the bed. 

If he were in a better mood, he would’ve been a right ass about the way her eyes raked over his unclothed torso, but he was feeling like absolute sewage. He chose to focus on other things instead, like what she said to him next. “Don’t be. Ben…” she took in a sharp breath. “I know those nightmares. I have them every night myself. I’ve had patients tell me they’ve heard my screams.” Rey leaned against the far wall of his room awkwardly, and crossed her arms over her chest. “They think I’m haunted by the plague, when really it’s…”

“Everything else?”

“Yes. There are four hundred or so odd years of terrible things floating through my mind…” She swallowed anxiously, looking sorrowful as she spoke. “Sometimes it’s people I’ve met, others it’s tragedies I’ve seen, violence, war, death…” she looked up at him. “And sometimes it’s you.”

“Me?” he asked, wondering how utterly perplexed he must’ve sounded. 

Rey nodded. “You cross my mind… frequently… Whether conscious or unconscious, you appear.” She let out a noise that almost sounded like a laugh. “You’re not a ghost, but you haunt me more than anyone sometimes.”

Ben thought for a moment before he answered her. “You cross my mind, too,” he told her. “Whether I want you to or not. You… you haunt me in the same way…”  _ I spend my days wondering when I will see you again _ , burst into his head as an unwelcome, but not at all untrue thought that he didn’t dare speak, especially when he wasn’t exactly sure what that sort of thought implied. “I cannot say if this new partnership of ours will make it better or worse, but I can say this…”

Another quiet moment passed between them, making him think on how odd it was that the last time they’d met, they’d drawn one another’s blood on the beach. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the water mixing with their blood as it pooled around them in the minutes before they healed again. He thought back on the sword he’d found on the beach, one he still carried with him even to that day, sitting in a bag of their things with Gwen in the inn, waiting for the day it would be reunited with its master. “I still have your sword,” he admitted after a while. “You dropped it on the beach when we fought… I went out into the sand after you left, and found it the moment you disappeared on the horizon.”

“Did you now?”

“I did. It’s with Gwen in the inn. We’ve kept it safe in a bag all these years. I may have used it on occasion.”

“It must be too old for use by now.”

“No. It works fine, but it always reminds me of that day when I look at it.” He ran a hand through his hair, brushing dark waves out of his face. “It makes me wonder if we will be able to pull off a successful alliance.”

“We have to try to make it work. In a time like this,” she took in a deep breath, squeezing the fabric of her dress — which was brown this time, he noticed — in her hands. Whatever she was going to say, though, died on her lips, left unsaid forever. “I’ll start teaching you everything I know in an hour. Do you like pottage for your breakfast?”

“I do.”

“Good, because that’s all I have,” she said, and Ben would swear Rey had given him a wink as she walked out of the room, and he was left alone, but somehow feeling less lonely than he had in centuries. 

For a few more minutes, he laid in bed processing all that had just happened. His nightmare had been intense, but the conversation with Rey… He still wasn’t used to being able to talk to her. Sure, she was the constant in his life, but up until recently they’d been stabbing one another with swords and fighting viciously whenever they met. Even now, with her offering to teach him, things were tense, but he was going to make the best of it. What choice did he have otherwise?

A groan escaped him, low and guttural as he stood up, then he stretched his arms, adjusting his trousers before he stood up, throwing on the shirt he’d worn the day before, throwing his thick, black tunic over it, shielding himself from the cold. The past few years had steadily been growing cooler in temperature, the winters harsher, less forgiving, and the summers not as long. Ben could barely remember the time of year, but he was fairly certain it was summer turning autumn. 

He belted his tunic at the waist, then shoved his feet through boots that he really ought to have replaced by now, but didn’t quite care to do so as he finished readying himself for the day. Without another thought, Ben reached for the cloak he’d slung over the foot of his bed, and tied it around his neck before he walked downstairs into Rey’s kitchen area. It was smaller than the rest of the house, seeming to almost function more as a storage closet than anything. 

Rey was pouring pottage into stone bowls for the two of them when he got there, a faint smile on her face as a form of greeting. “How are you feeling?”

Ben froze, unsure what the proper etiquette was with such a question. It had been so long since the last time someone had asked, even Gwen or Dopheld, that he had forgotten that one was supposed to lie and say they were well, even if they were in misery. “No better than I usually am.”

A knowing look appeared on her face as she handed him a bowl. “I need to warn you, what you are asking me to teach you… it will not help your grief.”

“I know, but I can’t keep doing nothing.”

“Believe me, I know what you mean,” Rey promised him, then she sighed before she sipped at the portage. “How did your other friend take the news? Is she going to be staying here or traveling on?”

He’d talked to Gwen the night before with regards to his plans, and she’d been hesitant about what she wanted, but in the end she had agreed to stay there. The sickness was everywhere now, and no matter where she went, the risk of getting infected or inflicting it upon others —since Ben knew nothing about how it was spread — was too high. Staying put was her safest bet, so she agreed to accept Rey’s offer for shelter, but she needed one night to herself first. One night to mourn the man she’d called a brother. 

Gwen would return to him that afternoon once she’d gotten her bearings, then she would come to Rey’s home, and commence work helping around the house as best she could. Ben had given her a nod, and wrapped his arms around his friend, pulling her in for a tight embrace that she returned as they stood there in the dying light of Dopheld’s funeral. She’d left pretty quickly after that without another word, walking back down the street toward the inn she’d paid for, and not looking back. 

Thinking about it that morning, he wondered if she actually planned to return, or if she was going to abandon him like so many others had before. It wasn’t as if he was going to die before her. She could spend the rest of her life with him, but he couldn’t spend the rest of his with her. That was the curse he and Rey were burdened with, but he wasn’t sure they’d ever be the sort of people to want that from one another, and spending centuries with a person… was such a thing even possible?

“I’m not sure,” he told Rey after a while, then he shook his head. “She said she’d stay, but now…”

Rey looked like she was about to reach out and touch him, but thought against it. He wasn’t entirely sure he would’ve stopped her, though. Sometimes, he realized, human beings needed the contact of another, no matter who they were, no matter how weak or strong. There would always be moments where one needed to borrow another’s strength, and in the wake of his friend — his  _ brother’s — _ death he needed it then more than ever. But he wouldn’t tell her that, he didn’t want to ruin the very delicate alliance they’d only just started to build. 

“We’ll begin your training after we eat,” Rey announced, changing the subject. “My other patient seems to be on the mend, but I need to be certain.” Ben gave her a nod, then the other immortal gave him a grin smile. “Then we are going to find out how capable we are of living with one anoher.”

Involuntarily, he felt the corner of his mouth betray him, and he heard Rey’s laugh for the first time in centuries, maybe ever. His memory was finite and he could only hold so many things, but he couldn’t remember if he’d ever heard her genuinely laugh. Either way, he stowed away the thought that he really, really enjoyed the sound of it for another century. The one perk to being immortal, he had all the time in the world to deal with his baggage. 

“Come on, eat up, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

Ben did as he was told, immediately increasing the speed at which he consumed the pottage until it was all gone. Once Rey’s bowl was equally empty, they both stood, and she sighed. “Here goes.”

“Here goes,” he repeated, then the world’s oldest people walked out of the kitchen and into the room where Jessika lay on a cot, and the training of Ben commenced. 

Life with Rey wasn’t what he’d initially thought it would be, and it became very quickly apparent that even if they had stayed together as friends two hundred years earlier, they would’ve separated quickly. This was simply because Rey was patient, and Ben was not. It was as she predicted, he was not an easy student. 

Ben frequently grew frustrated, and when man after man and woman after woman continued to die under his watch, he frequently spent nights yelling into the air. This also meant Rey gave him the duty of burying the Christian bodies, which was somehow less pleasant than that of the more pagan burnings like what they’d done for Dopheld. It was a good way for him to get out his rage, though. He could admit that much. 

Gwen deciding to stay helped his mood some, and she proved herself almost more useful than he did half the time. He was fairly certain that the only reason Rey hadn’t kicked him out of her home in the night was because she, too had taken a liking to Gwen that rivaled his own. The other woman, jessika had elected to stay behind as well, though she had gone back to living in her family home once she recovered from the disease. 

Together, they were one hell of a group, and quite possibly the only reprieve from their own internal misery no matter how much they fought. They trusted one another with their lives, even to the point where Jess was allowed in on his and Rey’s secret. She swore never to tell a soul, telling the pair she owed them her life, and they could have anything in return for what they’d done. 

Once Ben successfully learned the craft, he and Rey were almost an efficient team. He could only say almost, because the pair of them were still bickering at every chance they got, the echoes of the first few times they’d met going as far as three hundred years into knowing one another. How long it would take them to learn how to finally get along with each other, he wasn’t sure, but their uneasy alliance grew a little bit easier most days. Occasionally they took steps back, but for the most part, it seemed they were actually getting better at not pissing each other off, and he was content with that.

It was a year into their unholy grouping that they managed to finally have a dinner together with no patients, no dissent, and no arguing. It was the summer solstice, but the ever cooling climate made the temperature that day tolerable. The sun was setting, orange light shining through the windows as the four sat down to what equated the closest thing Ben had witnessed to a family meal in centuries. Of course, he couldn’t remember his family, and thus whatever a family meal felt like was something he’d long forgotten, pushed back into the hidden corners of his mind. 

“I still find it odd,” Gwen said, poking at her food - chicken, a truly rare delicacy for people with as little money as they had - then she took a bite out of it casually. “The two of you are the only people on the entire Earth who cannot die… and somehow you keep running into each other.”

“Well, only after nearly a century goes by,” Ben replied, then he looked over at Rey. “Or sometimes more… I never know where or when it’ll be, but each day… I wonder if the universe has decided it’s been too long since she annoyed me with her face.”

Rey threw a tiny piece of carrot at him. “Piss off,” she muttered, but there was a little smile on her face as she looked at him, one he actually delighted to see, since she had a nice smile, and with the lives they led… A little joy went a long way. 

“But in all seriousness, it’s always struck me as strange.” He wiped his hands clean on his trousers. “That only you and I have been wandering around for centuries, as if… somehow we were hand picked for this, harvested by whatever the forces be for a prime form of suffering.”

“I reckon that gets lonely,” Jess replied, then she took a sip of her broth. “How old are you both anyway?”

Again the two of them looked at each other. They’d both implied several times that they’d been alive for around the same amount of centuries, but still, Ben wasn’t sure of her exact age, or if she was keeping track. He’d only pinned his age down to about a decade himself, but Rey… 

“I don’t think either of us is quite sure.” Rey took a sip of her mead. “I know it’s been well over four hundred years by now, it may even be closer to five.”

“I’m much the same,” Ben replied, locking eyes with her from directly across the table. “Everyone around us lives decades, sometimes close to one century at most, but…”

“They all die in the end.”

“Yes, exactly.”

Ben took a sip of his mead, maintaining eye contact with Rey throughout. “But… I suppose in the spirit of keeping things light, on occasions, extremely  _ rare _ occasions, we see days like this. Ones without death, without war…” He watched the corners of her mouth flick upward, and he knew he was saying the right thing as he set down his cup. “Without anything but peace. Days where we can forget every bad thing that happened and remember we are alive, and… that isn’t a bad thing, it’s beautiful, and it’s a gift, and we… we’re here for a reason. Something must’ve decided it just has never been our time to go, so we’re still here.”

He could see her visibly shaken at his words, a moment of silence washing over the entire table. He could feel Gwen and Jess’s eyes on them, switching back and forth between himself and Rey before she raised her own cup in the air. “To those good days,” she said, hazel eyes twinkling with what he suspected was the beginning of tears. “And may we have many more.”

“To the good days,” the other three repeated, then they all took their sips, and set the cups down on the table once more. 

“I feel like now you’ve said this is a good day, it’s going to find a way to sour before we go to bed,” Jess said, causing the others to laugh nervously. 

Rey shrugged. “We’ll have to pray it doesn’t, then.”

“Do any of us pray?” Gwen asked, then she shook her head. “I forsook religion years ago, I’ve been mostly on the run ever since, so did Dopheld, when he was still with us.”

“I can’t remember the last time I prayed…” Rey replied, placing her hands on the table as she looked up to the ceiling, trying to recall a memory that wasn’t coming forth. “I would swear to you I prayed up until I left Jakku.”

Ben blinked a few times in recognition of the name. “That’s the village where we met.”

“It was. I lived there for… too long, I shouldn’t have stayed as long as I did, but… a part of me was always convinced that my family would return somehow. Even long after the last of them was dead and buried, I couldn’t…”

“I didn’t leave for a while either. I remember feeling as if I was betraying my loved ones, but then… I couldn’t remember them…”

“You forget things in stages… the sound of a laugh…”

“The color of eyes…”

“Voices…”

“Memories, feelings, both physical and emotional…”

“Until they’re gone completely,” Rey finished, taking in a slow, shaky breath as she continued to stare at him. “And that’s how it is with all of the people we meet.”

“Even us?” Gwen asked, and then he broke eye contact with Rey, and stared over at her instead. “In another four centuries… You’ll forget me, too?”

“I won’t try to,” Ben said, then he reached over a hand, and she took it, sadness in her eyes he’d seen so many times in himself. “And sometimes I do remember. You and Dopheld… I’ll remember you. I can’t forget…” Why they would end up sticking out to him, he had no clue, but as he glanced over at Rey, she was smiling with her eyes again, and maybe somewhere in the back of his mind, he started to recognize the reason. 

“I won’t forget this either,” she said. “No, this moment, this day… they’ll be on my mind in the years to come. Still, maybe I ought to take up a journal, write down the things I see as they’re happening. Who knows? Maybe it’ll become important some day.”

Ben snorted. “Maybe,” he replied, taking another sip of his mead. “In the meantime, though, I think I’m going to enjoy myself. It could be centuries before I see a day like this again.”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“After we separate… How long do you think it’ll be before we see each other next time?”

Rey laughed dryly. “Honestly? Just because we’ve been here together for so long-”

“It’s only been a year.”

“That’s longer than we’ve ever spent time together, Ben.”

“Fair.”

“It’ll probably be a thousand years before we see each other again the next time we leave each other.”

“Why would you, though?” Gwen asked, interrupting the duo’s conversation. Ben and Rey’s heads both turned to her in tandem, a hint of discomfort displayed on both their faces as they looked at her. He shook his head as if to warn her not to press further, and by the mercy of all the gods he didn’t believe in, she understood the signal. “I just mean… never mind.”

A great exhale seemed to leave the room at large, and as his eyes drifted over to nervously meet hers, he knew she understood exactly what Gwen had meant by the question. Why did they separate? They’d never gotten along, they were both independent spirits, and even now, even over a friendly dinner, he remembered that their last argument had only been a day earlier.

“It’s alright, Gwen,” Rey assured her, swallowing another sip of her drink. “Ben and I haven’t always gotten along, as you may have noticed…”

“Understatement, we stabbed each other the last time we met.”

“You did what?” Jess asked, looking bewildered at the thought.

“We got into a fight on the beach, wound up running each other through with swords,” Ben admitted, then he chuckled. “We’re still only just uneasy allies… I can sometimes see it in the way you look at me, like you’re not sure whether I am your friend or your foe.”

Rey’s tongue darted out, wetting her lower lip, which he tried not to stare at as she responded. “I see you looking at me like that sometimes, too. Like you think I’m going to turn on you at any second.”

“You could, but so could I… We really ought to be kinder to each other.”

“Truly, it’s a pity I enjoy picking fights.”

“A pity indeed,” he said, then they both reached for their cups, taking a long sip while maintaining eye contact. The subject of his relationship to her wasn’t touched for the remainder of the dinner. 

The days following that were not nearly as easy, death coming in to chase everyone but himself and Rey as the time went on. Gwen and Jessika grew weary of it, unused to it in the ways that the two immortals were, but as summer turned into winter he started to see traits in both of them that matched his own. The survivor’s guilt was overwhelming sometimes, and he’d caught both women staring at walls almost catatonic with ghosts in front of their eyes he wouldn’t have wished on anyone. 

Several times he’d told Gwen she ought to leave, make her life happy again, but she had been hesitant to leave his side, too fiercely loyal to the other man she called a brother - which warmed his heart ever so briefly to hear the possibility that he had a family of some sort - to even consider it. In the end, she had decided to stay, learning with Ben as the two of them slowly became skilled physicians, even if all they could manage to do for most people was provide them a sense of comfort as they left the world behind. 

Rey remained a little cold to him, and he to her in return, the both of them stuck between wanting to do something to improve the alliance between them and end the animosity, and not wanting to accidentally make things worse. Still, her patience was a virtue she held strong to, and by the time they were in deep winter again, she was actually complimenting Ben’s skill at the craft, even daring to smile at him on occasion. 

There wasn’t another good day like there had been that summer, though. The world grew dark and cold, the population of their small town just west of the English occupied city of Calais shrank by the day. Sometimes it was a wonder there were still people at all. What little life did exist was far from thriving, sorrow hanging over them all like a dark cloud. Everyone knew someone who had lost a friend, family member, or acquaintance if they hadn’t quite lost someone themselves. Not that Ben associated much with the townspeople, he mostly heard word of mouth from Jess or Gwen. 

He and Rey didn’t go outside much at all, except for to hold a funeral for one of the dead that came through their door. Well, he didn’t prefer to, but on occasion they did, donning masks he considered ridiculous with herbs stuffed into the nose of what reminded him of a bird’s beak that were apparently supposed to ward off disease. For most other doctors, it did nothing to protect them, but for the two of them, it worked just fine as a ruse to people who decided to question why they had not yet fallen ill. 

The excuse of decent luck was starting to wear thin. 

“Do you think we should leave?” he asked her one day as they walked back from retrieving herbs from a nearby seller, the plants and their masks swaying casually in a basket Rey carried. 

“Leave?”

“People talk, Rey,” he said, listening to the sound of their boots on the dirt path for a moment, to the stones and silt crunching beneath their feet. “They notice how many sick and infected we deal with on a daily basis, and they wonder how we haven’t fallen ill ourselves.”

“Any speculators will be dead before they have the opportunity to shout,” she replied casually. “I know that sounds brash, but it is the truth.”

“Rey…”

“I’m not leaving until the sickness passes. Ben… I’ve spent the last several centuries running, coming to this side of the channel was a big enough change for me. I want a moment to breathe before I move again.”

“How long has it been already?”

“What?”

“How long have you lived here? Before the sickness set in.”

“That’s not fair…”

“Our lives aren’t fair, Rey,” he hissed, grabbing her wrist to stop her walking so she would finally turn to look at him. “It is terrible, it’s hell. We have to live it, we’re the ones who have to shoulder that burden. So I’m asking you again. How long have you already lived here?”

Hazel met brown, and rage met rage as she turned to look at him, wrenching her hand from his grasp. “Five years. I can stay another five before anyone notices. Maybe even another ten if this plague lasts long enough.”

“Rey… you can’t stay here, as much as you might want to, it isn’t an option. It won’t be for much longer.”

“I won’t abandon these people.”

“Why? What loyalty do you owe them?” 

“Piss off, Ben…” she growled at him, then she trudged ahead into the house, and he rolled his eyes before following her, growing frustrated that she didn’t seem to be listening to him. How could she not see they needed to take their services to another town? They’d done enough in this one in his opinion. There wasn’t much more they could do. Jessika could oversee Rey’s practice if they chose to leave, Gwen could help her if she elected to stay behind as well, but either way, the townspeople for the most part died with or without them. 

It was a little selfish of him, he would later realize, but giving up on those people felt like the best thing to do, for their safety at least. He had yet to find out what would happen if the wrong people found out their secret - Jess and Gwen were a part of a very short list of trusted individuals he’d met and allowed to understand what had happened to him - but he didn’t fancy that discovery. Human beings could be wonderful, they could be kinder than one could ever imagine, but they also had tendencies to be cruel. He’d heard vicious things on his travels, horrible forms of torture by people in power, wicked mind games played on those one distasted…

The idea of those sorts of people using their eternal life to make them writhe in misery for the rest of it unsettled his stomach every time his brain conjured the thought into being. He couldn’t let that happen to them, to both of them. This was out of concern, he convinced himself, and that was true, but still something nagged at him as he followed her into the house. 

“Rey…” he said as they walked through the threshold. “We need to talk about this… You know as well as I do the risks of what happens after people start to get suspicious.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” she replied tritely.

“Even though it means you’ll suffer?”

She set down the herbs on a table in the kitchen as they walked into it. “Ben-”

“Answer me.”

“No.”

“Rey, if we don’t leave, more and more people are going to start noticing that we’re not dying. They’re starting to live a little longer. The sickness may be on its way out.”

“I don’t care,” she said, unpacking the herbs onto the table, still avoiding his gaze. The only two people who could never die, and they were both equally stubborn, neither of them would budge on the issue, of that much he was certain, but he had to at least  _ try _ .

Ben stepped forward, getting perhaps a little too much into her space, but she clearly wasn’t hearing him, or she would have acknowledged something in what he was saying was right. “Would you just listen to me?”

“I am listening!” she shouted, turning around faster than a whip to face him, both of them breathing hard for a moment as they stared at one another. It occurred to Ben that they were a little too close to be considered appropriate, their chests almost pressed together from a combination of his own step forward and the small space of their kitchen. At this distance, he could see all of the little microfeatures of her face, could see every tiny little shift in color in the irises of her eyes as they glanced down - though where they wound up looking, his heart raced to think about - and the freckles on her skin. Somehow Rey was sun kissed despite how little they went outside, something he would later spend too much time thinking about, but for now, his heart was racing from both rage and some sort of tension. 

“Then act like it,” he hissed, interrupting the silence that had fallen between them, breaking the spell that had fallen over the room like a blanket. Rage contorted Rey’s features as she reached up, and shoved his chest, stepping toward him as she pushed him back. 

“Get out,” she growled at him, then she shoved him again, and this time he fell back into the wall. “If you don’t want to help me, there is  _ nothing stopping you _ from leaving.  _ So get the hell out of my house! _ ”

Ben opened his mouth to respond, but he never got the chance to as he was interrupted by another, familiar voice. “Would you two shut it?” Gwen asked, leaning against the doorway with a hand over her forehead as she glared at them. “I’ve got a headache, I’m trying to rest it off, and I probably would have by now if not for your  _ incessant  _ shouting!”

Rey and Ben glared at each other one last time, then the latter of the two stepped away from the wall, and toward the woman who’d become a sister to him. “I’m sorry, Gwen, are you alright?”

“I might be if you stop,” she replied, then her hand shifted down to her neck, scratching at a spot there as she pressed her weight further into the door frame, as if it were the only thing holding her upright. Ben had seen his fair share of headaches in his life, but instantly he could sense that there was something different about hers. The head pain, the scratching at her neck…  _ No… no… no… no… no…  _

He was walking toward her without a second thought. “Let me take a look,” he said, and Gwen’s brows furrowed together.

“Why?”

“Gwen,  _ please,” _ he said quietly, trying to keep his voice from shaking as he gently reached up and took her hand from her neck by gripping her wrist, and gently pulling it down. Ben closed his eyes for a moment, praying to the god he’d long forsaken that he was wrong, and this was just a bad hunch, but eventually he had to open them, and when he did… his heart sank into his stomach. 

It was as he’d seen in patients many times before. The skin was swollen and discolored, darkening right by where she’d just scratched at it.  _ No. _ He blinked a few times as he processed what he was seeing, needing to be sure. His eyes glanced from one place to another, then back to her neck, seeing the same result each time, but refusing to process it. 

Gwen was sick, and in as little as one day the tiny family he’d built years ago might leave him before he’d ever thought he’d be ready. For the first time in centuries, Ben felt bile rising up in his stomach, and without another word, he dashed out of the kitchen, running through the house toward the clearing they’d burned the other man who’d become his brother in more than a year ago. He ran all the way out to the trees on the other side, and only then did he stop, crying out in rage as he shoved his fist into the bark of the nearest one. The pain shooting up his wrist was ignored as he did it again, beating his own fist bloody as he finally lost control of the careful mask he’d built over himself through the centuries. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry


	7. France, Just Outside of Calais, 1351 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's heavy on the angst and there's a bit of blood in the first bit just to warn you.

Rey was stunned as she watched Ben leave, knowing precisely why he’d run, but not quite processing it yet. She looked over at Gwen, who was touching the swollen skin of her neck gingerly with wide, unseeing eyes, likely realizing the same thing that her brother just had. She was going to die, and there was nothing she could do to stop it. 

It was when Gwen’s terrified eyes looked up at her that she finally realized that Ben had left, and she immediately ran out the same direction he had when he’d left. His name fell from her lips in a broken shout, in a way that it only ever had in her dreams, when she woke up from nightmares with the image of his death or hers. Her feet had never carried her faster as she ran out into the clearing, and into the trees beyond where she could already see Ben pummeling his fist into a tree. 

The crimson of his blood was visible from a distance. He was hitting it so fast, his body didn’t have time to rapidly heal itself, and if he wasn’t careful, he’d hit through to the bone. Rey cried out his name again, but he didn’t hear her, or maybe he ignored her. She couldn’t tell, all she knew was she had to stop him somehow. 

As she got closer, she could see tears streaming down Ben’s face, his eyes blinking them away by the second as she finally reached him. “Stop!” she cried as one last warning. “Stop it!”

He didn’t stop, his blood continued to stain the tree, droplets falling to the ground like rain the longer he fought his war with the wood.  _ That was it, _ Rey decided,  _ that was enough. _ Without another word, she slammed into him with her whole body, knocking them both to the ground violently. The wind was knocked out of her for a second, and she suspected the same occurred to him as he let out a pained grunt upon impact. 

She winced at the sound of his skull hitting a tree root, but he wouldn’t die, he would be fine and so would she. The only one who wouldn’t be fine was still standing in their kitchen, staring blankly ahead as she suddenly found her future cut off. 

“Ben!” she cried, pressing her hands down on his arms, her legs on either side of his waist in an effort to keep him pinned down, but he wasn’t struggling, he was just lying there, staring up at the sky with tears slipping down his cheeks. It was a far cry from the man she’d seen viciously beating a tree, and that was somehow the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen. He was so quiet, too quiet to the point where It was almost disturbing. 

“Ben, talk to me,” she said, feeling her own voice quavering in the silence. “Please. Say something.”

He continued to be silent, but he raised the hand he’d been beating the tree with to her arm, his blood coated palm wrapping around it just beneath where it connected to her shoulder. She could feel the crimson liquid seeping through her clothes, making them warm and we as she watched the deep, would-be fatal cuts slowly close themselves before her eyes. It didn’t take looking for her to know that he was staring at it, too, watching as his skin welded itself shut, reminding them both again what and who they were, of the fate that they were destined to meet. 

“Every time,” he breathed, staring mystified at his fingers. “Every single time.”

“I know,” Rey whispered, placing a hand over his as she tried to hold back tears of her own. “Ben? I know.” She was breathing hard as she looked down at him, panting like she never had before as she watched him stare at his healing flesh. 

“Let me go,” Ben whispered, struggling for the first time beneath her, but he didn’t seem to be trying too hard. It was almost like he wanted her to best him, like he didn’t want to actually escape. 

“This isn’t going to help and you know it.”

His entire body was shaking beneath hers, and she slid off of him to his right, the side with his still blood covered fist, and laid down beside him, trembling just as badly as he was. “Ben, I am so sorry,” she said softly. “I really am, but this isn’t going to help Gwen.”

“No,” he said in agreement, his voice heavy with unshed tears. “It isn’t. Nothing is… Rey, she’s going to die, and there’s nothing I can do.”

“I know, Ben.” She touched the back of her hand to the back of his, ignoring the slick of his blood as she wrapped her wrist over his. “All we can do is try to help her, make it easier. Do what we can until…” Rey didn’t let herself finish that sentence, instead she laid her palm parallel with his, and laced their fingers together. After a few seconds, she felt his fingers fall over her hand, and under any other circumstances she may have smiled, but not these. Not this moment.

She heard his head shift in the fallen pine needles beside her, but she stared up at the sky for another few minutes before she turned to look at him, finding his eyes already locked onto hers without the slightest hesitation. They were good at things like that, at communicating with their eyes. Already Rey could see the immense grief within them, the tear tracks that stained his cheeks, but any redness was already gone, healed by his changed biology. 

“Why us?” he asked, gripping her hand a little more tightly. “Why?”

“That I don’t know,” she answered him, exhaling shakily as they stared at one another. “I wish I did, Ben, I really do, but I don’t think we’ll ever know why this happened to us.”

“I’m sorry, Rey.”

“What for?”

“This doesn’t normally… I’m not… I’m usually stronger than this,” he murmured, swallowing his pride as he turned his gaze back on the overcast sky, which promised a storm not unlike the one he’d first come to her home under. “I haven’t lost control since… I don’t know how long it has been.”

“Sometimes you need to.”

He blinked, then his eyes were on her again. “What?”

“Sometimes you need to lose control. Ben, we’ve been through more hell than probably everyone on this Earth, though I cannot say how many there are… We… If anyone deserves to loses control of themselves every once in a while, it’s us.”

“That sounds fair.”

“But, Ben?” she asked softly, resisting the urge to stroke the back of his hand with her thumb. 

“Yes?”

“Promise me you won’t hurt yourself again when you do. You can yell, you can scream, you can curse the universe for what it’s done to us, but please.” She tightened her grip on his hand, as if somehow that would drill her words in deeper. “Never harm yourself again.”

“Rey…”

“Promise me…”

Ben slowly nodded, then he sighed. “I promise. I won’t do it again.”

“If you ever feel like doing it again, you find me. I don’t care where I am, or where you are, pick a direction, and follow it until you find me and that urge is gone.” Rey picked at a dead pine needle absentmindedly with her free hand as she spoke, watching his eyes soften at her words. “If it’s alright with you, I’d like to extend our alliance beyond this sickness.”

His jaw fell open just enough for her to notice. “You don’t want me to go?”

“I only want you to go if you want to go,” she replied, unsure of why she was so nervous about what she was going to say. “I know how this goes. You get attached, someone dies, and being in the place of their death becomes overwhelming, it makes you sick to your stomach. You’re reminded again of what happened to you, of what always happens to you when you decide to let someone into your life…” her voice was shaking now, tears brimming behind her own eyes as she spoke. “Ad then you run to a new place, you run to start over, and try to put them somewhere in the back of your mind, but they’re always with you no matter what you do.”

Ben thought for a moment, then his hand let go of hers, and he pushed himself up off the ground. She called out his name as she watched him walk over to the tree he’d just beaten his fist on, and quickly stood herself, prepared to stop him if he chose to resume the harmful activity. 

Luckily, he just raised his hand gingerly up to the bark, stroking the area he’d stained the color of a ruby jewel with his fingertips as he stared blankly at it. “I don’t know where I want to be… I’ll be here as long as Gwen is, at least, but… After that… You may be right.”

Rey walked over by his side, then she rested a hand on his shoulder. “Then we should get back inside. She may not have long left… If the universe is kind to her, she’ll be gone in hours.”

It happened more frequently than anyone realized, for someone to be fine when they woke up in the morning, and dead by the time night fell. All it took was a few unfortunate hours, and a life was gone. Others would writhe in misery for days, slowly wasting away until there was nothing left of them, and Rey could only hope Gwen, always standing tall and strong above everything, would not become one of them. 

“You’re right,” Ben said, then he turned back toward the house. “Let’s go.”

Rey followed him back in there without another word. The two were quiet, walking slowly through the clearing toward the house, which exuded an unusually silent aura, one she hadn’t quite seen since the day she’d returned with Gwen to find Dopheld dead in Ben’s arms. She shuddered to think that within hours, she’d see a terrible parallel to that first day she’d welcomed Ben into her home, one that would be borderline agonizing to witness. 

They walked through the rear door of the house together, sparing one another a nervous look as they walked through its threshold, and already the feeling of overwhelming dread spread its roots in the pit of her stomach. For a few seconds all she could hear was her and Ben’s boots tapping against the floor, the folds of her dark green dress ruffling with each step she took, and the quiet flapping of his cloak as the door shut behind them, creating a brief draft that ruffled their clothing to a brief excess. 

When they stepped into the room that had effectively become Rey’s workstation, they found Gwen and Jess holding one another as they sat side by side on a cot, the former of the two sobbing quietly into the latter’s shoulder. They stopped walking at the entrance, and she could see Ben trembling a little beside her as they stood side by side, as if they’d truly been allies all along instead of vicious enemies. 

She cocked her head in the direction of the cot. “Go to her,” she whispered, taking Ben’s hand in hers for a second. “She needs you.”

Ben gave her an anxious nod, then she squeezed his hand, providing him the only sense of comfort she could think to give, and he walked forward, undoing the ties of his cloak, and setting it down over the spare cot a few feet from where Jess and Gwen sat. Rey cleared her throat. “Jess? Could you come into the kitchen with me, please?” she asked, pausing for a tiny fraction of a second to give the other woman time to acknowledge her. “I need your help with something.”

The moment Jess locked eyes with her, she was fully aware that they both knew she didn’t need help with a damn thing, but she still stood up, patted Gwen’s shoulder, and walked into the kitchen ahead of Rey. Giving Ben one last nod of encouragement, she followed her, and the two women prepared the evening’s meal in silence as they listened to the faint sounds of their dying friend crying into her brother’s arms. 

It wasn’t until Rey nearly chopped off her own finger that she finally came out of her borderline comatose state, groaning as the sharp knife sliced through her flesh. Jess was at her side in an instant, offering to wrap it with a cloth, but she just shook her head, watching as the wound closed itself again, then she wiped it off on the cloth her friend had grabbed. “Thanks, Jess,” she said quietly, then she resumed her work on slicing the carrots for the pottage. 

By the time Gwen’s sobs had ceased, the meal was ready, and they carried the stone bowls out into the main space of the house to find their friends still holding one another tightly on the cot. “Food’s ready if you’re up for it,” Rey announced, setting the bowls down on a nearby stool, one which she usually reserved for herself or for friends and family of her patients if they chose to pay the risk of visiting their sick loved ones, but figured she could use as a table for the time being. 

“I’m not feeling terribly hungry at the moment,” Gwen replied, but she still untangled herself from Ben’s arms nonetheless. “But I suppose I should enjoy food while I still can.”

“Are you sure?” Ben asked softly, resting a hand gently on her shoulder, his touch so delicate it seemed as if he feared he would break her. Rey nearly rolled her eyes at that. The blonde was even taller than he was, and she was one of the toughest people she’d ever met. Even a sickness like this plague would not shatter her easily, not for a few more hours at the very least. They still had time, and whatever god might have existed willing, another miracle like what happened to Jess would occur, and death would not burden the house that night. 

“I’m sure.” Without another moment’s hesitation, she took the bowl off of the stool Rey had placed it on, and began to take delicate bites out of it as they all watched. 

“How are you feeling?” Ben asked quietly after several minutes had passed in silence. 

Gwen stared up at him blankly. “I… I still have a headache… my neck is sore…” She was trembling as she spoke, and Rey watched, feeling almost like a voyeur as Ben wrapped an arm around her shoulder, mistaking her fear for cold. It was interesting to her, seeing him like that. She’d witnessed Ben showing affection before, his sibling like relationship with the woman he was holding frequently showed her the side of him that she hadn’t thought possible when they’d met in the past, but somehow every time she saw it she was surprised. It softened her a little to see it, but she supposed a part of her surprise came from all those years they’d spent loathing each other. 

Even the people she hated were capable of love, she was realizing. They were still human, and she and Ben, despite all that had happened to them, were too. 

“We’ll do what we can for you,” Rey assured Gwen, taking a nervous bite from her pottage bowl. “You know we’ll try.”

The blonde shook her head. “I’ve seen this enough times to know how it goes. Most of us don’t survive.”

“Some do,” Ben replied, then he pointed across from them to the other cot. “Jess made it.”

“Jess was rare, an anomaly. We’ve only seen a few like her in nearly two years of this,” Gwen replied, then she took in a deep, shuddering breath. “Ben… I need you to promise me something.”

He gave her a firm nod, clearly not managing to get what was implied by just one sentence; a sentence that wasn’t particularly incriminating, but still told legions of her intentions for its end. “Anything.”

_ Oh, Ben… _

“If I am not recovering by tomorrow night, I need you to end it. I don’t want you to see me like that.” 

It took a few seconds for him to realize it, then in three stages, Ben caught on to her meaning. She saw it first in the falling of his jaw, then in the widening of his eyes, and finally the rapid shaking of his head as he understood his friend’s meaning. “No,” he whispered, and suddenly Rey could see his hand trembling as he held her. “No, I can’t, I won’t.”

“Ben, If you don’t do it, I’ll do it myself,” Gwen warned him sternly. “You’ve done it for others, I need you to do the same for me when the time comes.”

“ _ If  _ the time comes,” Ben muttered almost stubbornly, then he steadied himself, sitting up a little straighter beside her. “Fine, I’ll do it.”

“And then I want you to burn me like you did our brother.” She sniffled, her voice on the verge of breaking, and Rey’s heart broke for her in turn. “I want there to be no trace left of me when it’s done, just a whisper in the night. I want to exist only in your memory.” She spared a glance at Rey, reaching a hand across the space between them. “And yours.”

Rey blinked a tear she hadn’t noticed developing from her eyes, and took her hand, feeling the fever already burning through her veins beneath her palm. It wasn’t fair, it never was when they lost people like this, but it was their unfortunate truth, their terrible, horrible reality. “Alright,” she breathed, squeezing her friend’s hand once more before she let go, and cleared her throat. “This May be the last decent meal we share together. Let’s not waste it on tears. We have time for that later.”

“Agreed,” Jess said quietly, then she took a bite of carrot from her pottage, wiping the wetness from it on the stained tan fabric of her dress. “I want one more good memory with the four of us. We deserve that much.”

When Rey looked over at Gwen, she was smiling weakly. “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

Ben raised his pottage bowl into the air with his free arm. “To one more good day,” he said with a shaky voice, and three equally trembling voices repeated his statement. 

The rest of the meal soon became one of the good days. In time, Rey would separate it from the memory of learning that Gwen was going to die and make it its own entity. By the time she went to bed that night, she was even blessed with no nightmares. It would seem that the sound of Ben’s laugh, the smile on his face, and the overall energy of the room had finally put her in a good enough mood to not let her mind travel into her abhorrent past. 

What she was not going to let herself think about, though, was the fact that she couldn’t stop thinking about his laughter. No sir, she had enough problems without worrying about the shifting tide that was her relationship to Ben. 

That night Rey’s dreams were actually positive, featuring herself, Jess, Gwen, and Ben in the clearing enjoying a late afternoon meal watching the sun go down. At some point they’d started chasing one another around the grass, laughing as Ben chased after Rey who was after Jess who was after Gwen, running through what quickly became a field of flowers. It was the sort of dream she’d always wished to have, and she basked in its glory, in the way it made her feel warm despite the storm coming in from the north.

It was the first time in forever that she was able to wake up almost smiling, but the smile, she knew, wouldn’t last long. 

As Rey dressed for the day, in a simple, long-sleeved grey thing she belted at the waist, she remembered what had happened the previous day, and the peace of her dream was shattered. Ben’s bloody fist, his hand in hers, his intense eyes, the tears spilling from them both as they walked back into her home, Gwen making the world’s most terrible, but necessary request, and at last, a dinner that brought a temporary air of peace. 

Last she checked, Gwen’s fever had started to get worse, the discoloration on her skin darker and bringing a sinking feeling that she would not end up like Jess had. She would not pull through it, no matter how tough she might’ve looked. No, Ben would probably have to do the unthinkable, kill off his own best friend while —

That was a thought for another time, another hour, but not another day. Gwen would never let it go beyond a day. 

With a nervous, sharp intake of breath, Rey placed a hand over her heart, feeling it beat rapidly within her chest like never ending drums. Going down the stairs and onto the main floor of the house would reveal everything; would tell her what the course of the day was going to be, whether four would become three… or even two. 

There was no telling what Ben would do if things went poorly. She could only hope they managed to somehow save Gwen’s life. 

She pushed open the door, trying her hardest to control her breathing as she walked downstairs, and into the main area of the home. It stunned her a little to find that Ben was already down there, his clothes wrinkled from having been slept in, and he was sitting down on the cot next to Gwen, his head in his hands as he stared at the floor. The blonde’s chest was still rising and falling — a tad unevenly, but she was still alive. 

“Hello,” she said quietly, then Ben turned his head up to look at her, and he gave her a weak, disheartened smile. 

“Hi,” he replied, his voice equally as soft as she sat down beside him. 

Rey waited a moment before she spoke. “How is she?”

“She’s gotten worse,” Ben answered her, then he clasped his hands together. “She woke up twice to vomit, and the discoloration…” His voice fell flat, void of emotion as he continued, “I don’t think she’ll make it. I’m going to have to end it myself.”

“You don’t have to. This is a lot to ask of a person.”

“I can’t just watch her do that to herself, Rey. I… I’d rather it was me,” he replied, then she looked over at him, noticing that despite how emotionless he sounded, his eyes were misting over. “But if I’m being honest… I don’t want to do it either.”

The temptation to take his hand again rose within her, but she resisted it, unsure of whether he wanted to be touched just then. On top of that, their full and complete alliance was still so new and delicate, she didn’t want to mess with it. Especially not when Ben’s emotional state was as fragile as this. “If you have to do it, I’ll give you privacy, just say the word, and I’ll leave until you need me again. I’ll take Jess into the clearing when she gets in, and we won’t come back until you say the word.”

Unexpectedly, his hand reached up, and encompassed her shoulder, and he looked at her with a kindness in his eyes she hadn’t seen in him since perhaps the moment they’d met. “Thank you, but I hope more than anything I won’t have to accept your offer.”

“I hope so, too,” she replied, then she almost laughed. “Did you ever think when I demanded your name all those centuries ago that we’d end up here?”

“What? That we’d be most of the way to five hundred years old and chatting idly like old friends?”

“Oh, we’re old friends, Ben?”

“I suspect that once the lingering anger wears off between us…” He thought for a moment, staring up at her ceiling. “That is what we may become, though… Given our age... We are most certainly an old  _ something _ .”

She snorted her laughter, then caught the corner of his mouth twitching upward, providing her another look at what Ben was like when he was happy, a sight she’d started to see more and more frequently as of late — up until their argument the day before, at least. 

Of course, nothing happy ever lasted long with them. 

Not a second later, Gwen slowly awoke with a groan, her eyes locking onto Ben’s the moment they opened. Rey watched as she fisted the scratchy, dark blanket they’d laid over her tightly, communicating with her partner in crime without saying a word. Silence filled the room for a minute, the only sound being that of the distant thunder as they stared at one another.

“It’s over, then?” Gwen asked silently, her eyes never leaving his as he gave her a slow nod. 

“You’ve still got a few more hours before the afternoon, if you want them.”

Gwen looked as though she was considering it, but then her face blanched, and she turned away from them to vomit over the other side of the bed into the bucket they always provided their patients with. Rey winced at the groan that followed, undoubtedly from the immense pain stemming from her abdomen, which the physician had seen enough times to know it was never a good sign. It certainly wasn’t a sign she was getting better. 

“Do you really think I want those hours, Ben?” she asked afterward, her voice croaking on almost every word as she turned to face them. “I don’t want to spend the last minutes of my life vomiting and shitting my guts out, writhing in pain… I’m sick, I’m more likely than not about to die within hours anyway, please…” She rested her hand over his. “End it before it gets worse.”

Rey watched Ben’s face fall, then put itself back up again, his expression neutral, then he sighed. “We’ll wait till Jess comes in for the day. She deserves to see you one last time.”

Gwen shook her head, pressing a palm against what Rey had no doubt was the world’s worst, most brutal headache. Though her immortality meant she had yet to actually witness the symptoms in herself, she’d seen enough patients come through, and enough people suffer to know that every minute of the virus was pure and utter hell, especially the closer one got toward the end. Seeing it in her friend only made her empathy she always felt for her patients that much stronger, and she hated the thought of leaving her, but it wasn’t as though hers would be the first mercy killing committed under this roof. 

After all, Rey had done it herself quite a few times. There was a knife she kept in her kitchen for that exact purpose, hidden beneath her blankets which were neatly folded in a pile off in the corner. She loathed using it, but when the alternative to the knife was potentially days of untold suffering, she always honored requests. 

She hadn’t had to do it since Ben and his family had come into her home, but that was about to change.

“I don’t want Jess to see me like this… It’s bad enough you both have to…” Gwen replied, then she stood up slowly, standing a little shakily on her feet. “We had a good night, but that’s over… It’s all over.”

“Gwen…” Ben protested, but the blonde wasn’t looking at him anymore, she was looking at Rey.

“Get the damn blade.”

A soft noise somewhere between a sob and a whimper left Ben, but he steeled his expression by the time she looked at him. She didn’t say anything about it and neither did Gwen, both women feeling the same sort of shock and sorrow at all that was happening. Just yesterday they were all together, all alive, joyous, even up until the moment Ben and Rey got into their argument. Now they were falling apart, one of them was dying, and there was absolutely nothing any of the others could do about it.

Rey slowly rose from the cot, giving Ben one last, regretful look before she walked into the kitchen, heading straight for the blankets she’d buried her dagger under. A lump was forming in her throat at the thought of what she was about to do, well, what the other immortal was about to have to do. The moment her fingers touched the fabric of the blankets, her heart was aching for them both, and she was unable to stop the tears that fell onto the handle of the knife when she finally unveiled it from its confines. 

The blade had ended a few lives since she’d stolen it off a Parisian merchant, but never one she’d been close to. She wasn’t quite at the level with Gwen that Ben was, but the two women were certainly good friends, and if this weren’t her fate, they’d probably have grown closer, and then the blonde would have thoroughly become one of her ghosts. 

Unfortunately for Ben, he considered the other woman a sister, and she was going to haunt his nightmares for centuries to come. In fact, she was going to haunt him so much, that on one meeting that was still six hundred years in the future, he would wake up screaming for her and Rey would wind up having to comfort him late into the night.

Those events had yet to pass, though, since Gwen was still alive, but only just clinging to life as her illness tore through her strong frame and bones of steel. Up until the night before, Rey had been partially convinced that Gwen might have been like them. She’d never seen the woman bleed or fall weak to anything, so it had occurred to her, that maybe there was someone else out there like them, but maybe she just didn’t know it yet. 

The events of the previous day proved this not to be the case. 

Rey took in a deep breath as she grasped the knife in her hands, holding it cautiously as she walked back into the main room where Ben was holding Gwen close, whispering softly into her ear words of comfort she couldn’t quite make out from this distance. As she got closer, she rested her palm gently on his back, and he slowly turned to look up at her with tears threatening to fall from his eyes. Ben was a silent crier, she was noticing, or rather, he was just spectacular at holding back his emotions, but terrible at stopping his tears. 

She dreaded to find out what it would take to get Ben to finally snap and lose himself completely, but she had a bad feeling this would be it. 

To her surprise, he managed to blink them away, his expression taking on a blankness she’d never seen before as he reached out, and took the knife from her. “Go,” he said once he had it firmly within his grasp, then he gestured to the rear of the house. “I don’t want you to see this.”

While Rey knew she could handle seeing what he was about to do, she knew the true meaning of his request was that he simply wanted to be alone. She could provide her ally — or were they friends now? Did that conversation in which he referred to them as old friends actually mean anything? What was it like to even have a friend — with comfort later. Instead, she turned to Gwen, who was looking up at her from where she’d buried her face in Ben’s shoulder, and rested a palm on the woman’s cheek. “You made my life better for a while,” she said softly. “I just want you to know that.” 

As Gwen whispered her thanks, Rey leaned forward, and pressed a kiss goodbye to the crown of the woman’s head, then she gave Ben one more look, and slowly walked out of the house, leaning against the back door the moment she shut it. 

Already the incoming storm had darkened the skies above, the clouds a rapidly moving mass of black, purple, and gray as they rushed over the landscape, and in the distance, she could hear the sound of rolling thunder making its way steadily toward her. Still that noise did nothing to hush the quiet, murmured voices she could hear of Ben and Gwen as they said their goodbyes. Voices carried in the little house she’d taken, conversations could be heard in just about any room and a good ways outside, no matter how quietly one talked. She’d been told this by many a patient in her time staying in the little town, and now it enabled her to hear everything the two were saying. 

Well, almost everything. 

It wasn’t hers to hear, though, those words were private, so she pushed herself away from the door, and walked over to the pile of firewood she kept at the back of the house, and began to build a pyre. But even the distance did very little to hide the scream undoubtedly accompanying the slicing of a knife through flesh. She couldn’t tell which of them had screamed, and she’d never know, that was between him and Gwen, but Rey’s eyes shut, closing her off from the world as she processed what was happening in the house. 

Within seconds she knew it would be over, and Rey sniffled as the tears fell down onto her cheeks. It wasn’t fair. It was legions beyond fair, but she’d learnt a long time ago that the world did not give a damn about what happened to its people. In moments like these, Earth became the ninth circle of hell, the coldest, cruelest place where only the devil resided amongst the worst of suffering, and Rey wished nothing more than to crawl out of it back into the eighth. 

When she finally finished building the pyre, she heard the door to her house finally opening just as the pressure in the air was starting to thoroughly drop with the storm that was now no more than a few miles beyond them. Taking in a slow breath, Rey turned to see Jess walking out the door, holding it open for Ben. She must’ve come in just minutes ago, instantly greeted by the sight of their dead friend cradled in his arms. Shaking that thought from her mind, she felt her heart drop when she realized he was carrying Gwen, her face paled and greying in death, but her eyes closed as if she were merely sleeping. 

They all knew she wasn’t. 

It took all of Rey’s strength to ignore the obvious, large crimson stain that covered Gwen’s rib cage on her right side and the blood covering Ben’s hand. His face was still a blank canvas that was completely void of emotion as he approached, though she watched his Adam’s apple bob in a nervous swallow as he laid her on top of the wood she’d piled with a meticulous hand. 

“We should do this quickly,” he said, looking up at the sky. “There’s a storm coming in.”

Rey’s heart broke for him a little, but she simply gave him a nod, and they began preparations for the rather sudden funeral as lightning lit up the distant sky. On the horizon she could see the haze of a heavy downpour as they placed the body on top of the wood, and once Gwen was in place, Rey rested her hand on her forehead, swallowing back the tears she could feel building up inside of her before taking a step back. 

“Light it,” she told Jess, who was standing to the side carrying a makeshift torch they’d made using a branch from the very tree Ben had beaten himself on the day before. Tears were openly streaming down her face as she stepped forward, and pressed the torch to the base of the pyre, then they all stood back and watched as the flames began to lick skyward. 

It was like Dopheld’s funeral nearly two years earlier. Rey and Ben stood off to the side, while Jess mourned on her own, her arms wrapped around herself as she watched misty eyed while their friend became ash, floating up toward the sky like she’d longed to do. Their hands hadn’t quite joined yet, though, they were both still stuck in the stages of silence that came before they inevitably would hold a conversation. 

Something in Rey told her that when he did talk, she was not going to like what he was about to say. Despite what he’d told her in the moments before Gwen had woken up that morning, there was this sinking feeling developing in her gut that told her he was not going to stay after this. He was going to do what they always did when the pain grew to be too much, he’d run and build a new life in another place, and she couldn’t blame him for it. She couldn’t blame him one bit for deciding to leave. 

“I’m…” he started to say, but she turned away from the fire, and placed a hand on his chest, trying to ignore how fast his heart beat beneath her palm. 

“I know,” she replied, fisting the fabric of his tunic — a similar grey, old thing to what he’d worn when they’d fought on the beach — in her hand. “I don’t blame you.” Then a moment later, she sighed. “When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow at sunrise. I… I can’t stay here, Rey…” He told her, and she heard the trembling in his voice, but she pointedly avoided his gaze though she knew he was looking at her. “It’s already painful.”

She nodded. “You’d think after all this time it would start getting easier.”

“You would, wouldn’t you?” He almost laughed, then she felt his entire body shudder. “I’m sorry, Rey… I know we were just starting to…” At this, they turned to face one another, and she gave him a weak smile. “One day I hope to extend my hand to you in partnership again. You’ve… you’ve made the last couple of years not as terrible as they usually are.”

“And you’ve done the same for me,” she replied, then her gaze turned upward as the first of the rain drops from the oncoming storm splashed against her cheek. “There’s the rain.”

“There it is indeed,” he said, and she stared at him again as the rain began to sprinkle them lightly, only the barest preview of what it was going to do to them next as the fire crackled on in the background. Despite the loss they’d only just started to endure, there was a glimmer of hope in his eyes, and for the first time she became aware of the shifting tide. Change was coming onto the shore that was their relationship. They were no longer enemies, she no longer loathed him and she wasn’t certain he’d ever loathed her, and the next time they met, they were going to meet as friends. 

That fact alone nearly put a full smile on her face, but the lingering sorrow in his eyes stopped her. “Where do you think you’ll go now?”

“I was considering a journey to Portugal before this started— with Gwen and Dopheld. Perhaps I ought to resume my quest.”

“Your quest for what?”

“I do not know,” he admitted, then he let scoffed. “But have I ever known? Have you?”

She shook her head. “No, I’ve never once known exactly where I was going, only that eventually I was likely to run into you again.”

Ben’s eyes were glistening, with tears or with laughter, she couldn’t quite tell, but either way, she felt that tug at her chest again for him, sympathy for the man she’d never thought would be more than an uneasy ally. “And I to you.”

“When do you think we’ll see each other again after this?”

“Another century?” he asked, then he glanced over at Gwen’s pyre, the flames still burning strong despite the increasing strength of the rain. Thunder rumbled overhead as he looked at her, undoubtedly remembering the conversation they’d had at dinner that one evening in which she’d asked why they ever bothered separating. Sometimes it was necessary, sometimes painful things happened, and they needed a break from the things that would remind them of it. Maybe one day they’d rely on one another more, they’d need to be together more permanently, but that time had not yet come to pass. 

Rey shuffled her feet on the ground, then she rested a hand on his arm. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you again eventually, won’t I?”

“Yes, you will,” Ben replied, then their eyes met again, and Rey wasn’t sure what compelled her to do it, but she launched herself forward, wrapping her arms around his shoulders as she pulled him into an embrace, closing her eyes as she rested her head beside his. 

For a second he was frozen, as if he didn’t know what to do, but then Ben’s arms slowly wrapped themselves around her waist, and they stood there in the rain, the fire roaring nearby as they shared their first embrace. It was another memory that would stand out to her through the centuries, but again, most of their firsts tended to have that effect. 

Ben was warm, he always was, even in the freezing rain, even despite the wind that whipped at their clothing, at their hair. Rey had never felt such an all encompassing peace as she did in the moment of their embrace, and she decided to let herself revel in it for just a moment. Her hands buried themselves in his clothing, gripping the wool of his tunic in her fists as his own arms tightened themselves around her, holding onto her as if she were the only thing keeping him grounded to reality.

In her chest her heart was racing inexplicably, the sound of her own pulse in her ears nearly drowning out that of the pouring rain and the fire that still raged on despite the rain soaking the wood. It was an impossible thing, but when the two people sharing one another’s warmth in its presence had been alive for more than four hundred years, was it really such an improbability? Was anything impossible anymore?

Rey didn’t know what to think. All she knew was that when the two of them inevitably reunited, she was eager to embrace him again. Ben gave halfway decent hugs, she was learning as his fingers traced little circles in her upper back, soothing her despite the terrible circumstances under which they’d finally reached this level of comfort with one another. 

“If you ever want to find me, just head west… I’ll likely be there a while,” he said quietly into her ear, making her remember the day before when she’d told him that he could pick any direction to find her if he needed to. Ben, it would seem, had made her life easier by picking it for her. “I can’t say how long, but… find me… we’ll get a drink together like friends do.”

“Is that all you think friends do? Have drinks?” 

“I think it’s a good place for us to start.”

Rey pulled away from him, then, with a chuckle, but she still kept her hands resting on his forearms. “Alright, that sounds lovely, but until that happens…” She turned to Gwen, watching as the flames only grew brighter and taller, illuminating them both in their soft, orange light. “Live a good life, Ben… She would’ve wanted that for you.”

“She wanted it for you, too,” Ben replied, then he held out his hand, and she gave him a weakened smile as she took it, and they watched the fire as it burned, the tide eternally shifted, and the greatest partnership known to history found its roots on the French coast. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND NOW THEY'RE FRIENDS AND SHIT CAN GET MORE EXCITING. I'm super psyched about the next several chapters, they're going to be a ride.


	8. The Coast of Portugal, 1487 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're taking a break from the angst, well, kinda.

Ben left the next morning after the funeral. They’d stayed up fairly late the night before, Rey providing him as much comfort as she was able, which had mostly consisted of them sitting by the fire in the living space watching it burn late into the night until he’d left. She wished him a good night, and he’d only turned back and given her a sorrowful look before he made his exit. In the morning as the sun rose in the sky, he woke up and rolled out of bed, grief overwhelming him as he packed his things into a bag he’d carried around for at least a century, and then prepared to head out the door. On his way down there, he stopped to see her in the kitchen, picking at some eggs and rye bread that served as her breakfast. 

They’d both paused when they saw each other, and she stood up, looking as if she wanted to say something, but he didn’t let her. Instead, he reached into his bag, and pulled out the sword she’d used to wound him a century earlier. “I found it after you left. I meant to give it back to you when I saw you again, but… For some reason I never did.”

She took it from his hands, blinking a tear from her eye. “Thank you,” she replied, then she looked tempted to laugh, but she restrained herself as she set it down by her side, then she stood up straighter. “So you’re really leaving?”

“I am.”

Sorrow crossed her features, and for a moment he considered staying, and not leaving this place behind, but then he remembered what had happened the day before, the reason why he was packing up and making his hasty exit. The death of his best friend was still too fresh, and his friendship with Rey wasn’t yet strong enough to make him want to stay behind.

Still he felt terrible for leaving her there, and without saying another word, he initiated their second hug, holding her tightly in his embrace. She buried her face in his chest, her arms coming around his back to fist themselves in the fabric of his cloak as she returned the gesture. 

They stood there for several moments too long just holding one another, then Ben slowly pulled away, and gave her a nod. “Remember, if you want to look for me, I’ll be in the west.”

“I’ll find you eventually,” she promised him, tugging on his hand one last time. “I promise.”   


“I’m holding you to that,” he said, giving her a grim smile before he opened the front door of the house. “Goodbye, Rey.”

She sniffled. “Goodbye, Ben,” she replied, then he walked out of the house without another word, and onto the dirt road leading out of town, still able to smell the sickness and death in the air as he made his way through it harmlessly. He could feel her eyes on him the entire time, and it wasn’t until he rounded the corner out of her line of sight that he let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, and felt his own tears falling down onto his cheeks. 

Another century passed before he saw her again, the next one hundred and thirty years of solitude doing him little good, but he was fairly certain they were doing him better than staying near Calais would have. Even when the world recovered from its illness, even when light began to filter in through the darkness, he would’ve hated it there. At least, he was convincing himself of that as the days passed. 

Ben had hopped around Spain for longer than he intended, never spending more than a year in a town, and sometimes even less. Countless people passed him by, more shadows in the night, but never lingering long enough to become ghosts. He wouldn’t let anyone get that close to him again, he swore it. The mistake had been made enough times that by the time he suspected he’d reached his five hundredth birthday, it was almost a cosmic joke when he got his heart broken. 

But no matter what he did, he remembered Gwen each and every day. Every time he sat in a new town, he’d think of her and Dopheld, the little family he’d built and only had for a few years before he lost them both to that wretched illness. By the time he wound up living in the coastal town of Ahch To, he was not necessarily over their loss, but more so content with how it shaped him as a man. 

The ghosts haunted him, but they never managed to take him down the way they seemed desperately to want to. 

He woke up on that fateful day to stare out the window at the town, watching as waves crashed on the distant shore, rocking the boats pulled up onto the sand that belonged either to the military or to the explorers who set off to document the world in its infinite majesty. In the past few decades, men had started to journey places. They’d set off through the Asian continent, around the swells that crashed upon the coast of many African nations, and trades began to flourish. Life was doing better than it ever had been before in this time of renewal after so much endless darkness, and it warmed his heart to see. 

There was always an emptiness, though, it lingered on him like a cape, and he wore it everywhere he went. That morning, despite the sun and the cerulean sky, it was present with a newfound intensity, which made him groan as he dressed for the day. The summer sea breeze wafted in through his open window as he threw on a shirt that had once been a near perfect white, like the snow he’d occasionally seen on some winters, but now with the passage of time was starting to yellow. His shirt color mattered little to him, though; at least the damn thing was clean, and beneath the black vest and the loose fitting jacket he’d stolen off of a Spanish nobleman twenty five years earlier, it still made him look akin to one of the princes he’d heard of in fairytales, albeit a bit roguish. 

He certainly didn’t care about his looks, but as the time passed and the rest of the world became happier, looking as sad and lonely as he felt tended to draw unwanted whispers and attention. Ben had learned how to act like he was one of them, to revel in the renaissance and the attitude of the changing times, and sometimes he could. The change meant he didn’t have to see things that reminded him of his pain, or the people he’d lost. It did, however, make him feel every one of his near six hundred years to the fullest. 

Yet the lines and typical signs of aging never showed themselves on his face. He’d long since accepted that they never would. 

The day progressed normally, with Ben watching a crew sail out into the Atlantic heading west out to sea over breakfast from his window. Where they were going, he couldn’t say, and perhaps he would never know, but internally he wished them a good journey. Some of them he knew in passing, since they either lived nearby or could be found studying cartography up in the nearby library for hours on end. 

Admittedly, Ben was rather fascinated by the idea himself, and considered joining one of the crews that sailed off to find new land, but never quite found the strength to. Crossing the channel from England to France had been one thing, but to leave the continent entirely… while he couldn’t die, there was something keeping him attached to Europe and he couldn’t quite explain it. 

He spent most of that day uptown, the sighting of the boat inspiring him to spend his time learning the writings of scholars and men he hoped would not become forgotten by history, but would likely become trumped by other richer, louder men. Ahch To was affluent, much more so than places he’d lived in in the past — he had definitely stolen more than his fair share of money and foreign goods from ships in order to obtain the home he kept at present — but it wasn’t so wealthy that it would leave a significant mark. A tragedy, really, but it was enough to satisfy him for the time being. 

The texts he read were far from page turners, but what he learned about the other sights the world had to offer fascinated him. For the first time in forever, Ben actually felt himself looking forward to the next chapter of his life, since he had forever to explore the world, which was turning out to be larger than anyone had ever thought by the day. His only sorrow was that he’d do it alone like he did everything, which was another tragedy in and of itself, but when he considered the alternative of losing that person and causing himself more pain. 

Once those thoughts entered his head, Ben shut the massive book he was reading on what had been discovered in Northern Egypt, and made his exit from the library, nodding his head in passing to a few casual acquaintances. The sun was beginning to set as he strode on the street by the sea side, watching casually as a ship pulled into the port, its sails coming down as a strong-jawed captain with a thick, dark beard and a coat of a deep green steered it against the wooden dock. 

Men rushed out to bring the ship into port, and Ben watched as he leaned up against the front of his house as it finally came to a halt, and people began to disembark. On the side, painted on in a red, calligraphic scrawl, was a French name just above the waterline on the bow, telling him this ship hadn’t traveled terribly far to find itself in Ahch To’s port, and it probably wasn’t worth watching. Still he lingered, watching distractedly as the ship unloaded with the setting sun providing his background. 

He was so distracted in his own thoughts, pondering why he was so captivated by the ship, when he heard a familiar, deep but feminine voice call out his name. 

“Ben solo!” Rey’s voice cried, and instantly relief flooded him that the wait was over. 

He turned around to find himself face to face with the woman who had haunted him for the past five centuries, and a stupid grin began to part his lips, “Rey.” 

She was dressed similarly to him, her hair tucked back into an odd hat and her more feminine features disguised under the layers of her clothing and an old sack she’d sling over her shoulder to carry her belongings. Each of these things stood out to him more prominently as she walked away from the boat that had just docked — a sign she’d disguised herself as a man again, likely to gain secure passage on whatever ship she’d taken to get there. His face fell at the thought that she’d spent all those years still in France, only hopping from town to town instead of… Well, she’d always had more trouble leaving a place than he did. He didn’t know everything about her yet, and he wagered he never would, but he knew she dealt with her ghosts differently than he did. 

“You must be looking for a fight if we keep running into each other like this.” Her voice interrupted his thoughts again, and Ben mustered a half-hearted laugh as he stepped forward, and gave her a sarcastic bow.

“You’re the only adversary worthy of fighting, my lady,” he replied sarcastically, then Rey reached forward, and swatted him on the shoulder. 

“I know we said we were past the actual fighting when we last saw each other, but don’t think I will hesitate to absolutely ruin your eternal life,” she told him, then as he straightened himself up, her face fell from its broad smile, and her hazel eyes blinked up at him curiously. 

Ben’s posture shifted to match the concern that washed through him, and he placed a hand tentatively on her arm. “Are you alright?”

She didn’t answer, but instead it was like the day he’d decided to leave their home in Calais. Rey had thrown her arms around his neck then, and held him close for the first time in desperation and a provision of comfort. In the present, she did much the same, only this time he was wrapping his arms around her waist in tandem with the arms flying around himself, embracing her tightly for the first time in what — he’d counted — had been a long one hundred thirty six years. 

His hands fisted themselves in the leather of her jacket, and he took in a deep breath, smelling the sea salt in her hair as it blew into his face on the breeze. The embrace felt oddly intimate, and sweet, stirring within him an odd feeling of peace that was always completely foreign to him on those rare occasions in which he felt it. 

There had been a time where he’d thought their friendship would be impossible, when she’d never ever want to spend any amount of time with him if she could help it. Now they’d lived together for nearly two years at once, they’d sealed their alliance with an embrace just beyond the coast of France, and they were reuniting with smiles on their faces while the waves crashed on Portugal’s southern beach in the background. 

It was the most serenity he’d felt in possibly his whole life, and he never wanted it to end. 

Eventually, though, it did, and Rey pulled away to beam at him as she smacked his arm with her palm, letting her hand rest there as his fell to his side. “I thought it’d take me ages to find you… I found you in two minutes,” she breathed, then they both laughed until she added, “And now that you’re here… I reckon we have a lot to tell each other.”

The smile that erupted on his face in response was involuntary, and he worked quickly to make it smaller so that it was just a tiny little grin. “We do, and we should,” he replied in agreement. “The sun’s going to be down, soon.”

Rey turned and looked out at the sea from which she’d just arrived, the breeze blowing a few strands of her hair around her face as he watched, staring at his friend for perhaps a minute too long before he followed her gaze, and the two stood there, side by side just watching the waves hit the shore for a while. “Another day down, infinity to go,” she whispered quietly, then Ben’s heart ached a little in his chest as he stepped between her and the setting sun, feeling its dying rays warm his back. 

“Are you alright?”

“Have I ever been?” she asked, then she almost laughed. “Have either of us?”

Ben shrugged, then an idea popped into his head, but he could only hope she’d be alright with it. Friendship was still a new idea between the two of them, and while they seemed to be almost delighted to see each other, he still needed to tread cautiously. “That is an excellent point, but Rey, I have an idea where we might be alright for a little while.”

“What is it?”

He stepped forward, though he didn’t step too far into her space, not wanting to raise alarm from any passers by on the very busy street nor wanting to give himself the room to think on the implications of such things. “I believe the last time we were together, you said something along the lines of ‘friends get drinks together,’” he answered her after a while. 

“I did,” she replied with a confident nod, then her hands found themselves on her hips. “Well, I haven’t been here long, I think I’ll need you to show me to the nearest tavern. We’ve known each other for four hundred years… I’d say we’re long overdue for a drink.”

“I’d say so indeed,” he replied, then he cocked his head to their left. “Follow me, I know of one a few streets down. You’ll have to keep that hat on, though. Anyone figures out you’re a woman, they might give you trouble.”

“I’ll give them trouble back,” Rey replied, patting the hilt of the sword she kept at her side. His eyes widened slightly when he realized it was the same one she’d used on the beach, the one he’d finally given back to her the morning he’d left as his gift goodbye. The hilt looked different now, with a red ribbon tied tightly around the handle, but it was unmistakably the same sword. He wondered how long she’d have it, how long it would serve her in battle. He’d been stabbed by it twice, and was fully aware that the now three hundred year old sword was nothing to be trifled with, but it wasn’t like them. There was no way it could possibly last forever. 

Ben gave her a nod. “I know you will.”

“Where’s that tavern, then?” she asked, tugging on the strap of the ancient looking bag — so maybe it wasn’t a sack, but it was damn close — she carried. “We never quite got the chance to act like proper allies last century. I…” Her expression sobered, and she took a deep breath, closing her eyes against a stronger passage of wind. “I want to begin to apologize for… for my part in our feud.”

“And I for mine,” he said in response, then he took a step in the direction of the tavern. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

Rey gave him another weakened, but warm smile, then the two of them strode down the street in silence as they made their way toward the tavern. 

Drinking wasn’t much of a sport to Ben, it took him a lot more mead than the average man to feel drunk, and his alcohol tolerance put the fear of god in those around him, often drawing unwanted attention to himself. With Rey, though, he suspected it might actually be decent fun to have another person present.

They hadn’t ever gotten a chance to truly interact as friends, though, and if he were being honest he was quite nervous about how this would turn out. Still as they walked into the tavern, some of the regulars gave Ben a wave of acknowledgement, and Rey turned to him with a quirked eyebrow. “I didn’t know you were capable of making friends,” she told him, then he scoffed. 

“They’re not my friends,” he replied, leading her over to a quiet table in the back. They had more than a century of each other’s lives to catch up on, and really didn’t need the locals hearing what they had to say. Even if they didn’t believe them, they certainly didn’t need to be tossed into a prison on claims that they were insane. At this point, they probably were, but Ben wasn’t going to tell people that. 

The two of them sat down wordlessly, and Ben waved to the man tending bar, signaling him to bring two glasses. When the drinks were brought to them, he gave the man — whose name he’d once learned but forgotten in the sea of endless ghosts — instructions to not let their glasses go empty, then they were alone, and it was just him, Rey, and the country’s most potent wine. 

There was a brief awkward silence as they looked at one another, then she braced herself against the table, and took in a sharp inhalation of breath. “So… I guess I should start with how long have you been here?”

“In the town or the country?”

“Town.”

“Three years,” he told her casually. 

“Not long at all, then.” She gave him an almost sorrowful look as she raised her glass to her lips, sipping the drink like it was nothing. “This wine is bloody awful,” she muttered after she finished 

He barely withheld the snort of laughter that bubbles up within him. “It may be, but it will get you thoroughly drunk.”

“You haven’t been drinking alone, have you?”

“I don’t usually have anyone to drink with, no,” he replied, his entire body tending as he spoke. “I’ve been alone for the most part since I left you outside Calais. I… I’ve spent nights with my bed warm, sure, but more than a day or two? I haven’t allowed anyone to stay. It… I can’t do it again, Rey, I won’t be ready for centuries yet.”

At this, her hand reached across the table, and she gave him a soft little hint of a smile, the gesture filling him with warmth despite the already heated summer air. The last of the dying sun’s rays were filtering in through the window, illuminating every little detail of her irises as they looked into his, and he had the passing thought that Rey had beautiful eyes. He didn’t allow himself to think on that further. He  _ couldn’t  _ allow himself to. 

“I can’t say I approve,” she said after a while, then she let go of his hand, and leaned back in her seat, taking another sip of her wine. “But I would have been the same. I have been the same.” 

Ben quirked an eyebrow curiously as he, too, took a sip of his wine, and gestured for her to continue. “How come?”

“I stayed with Jess through most of her life,” she told him, smiling, though there was a mist that covered her eyes at the mention of their old friend. “She told me to leave her behind when her hair was completely gray. She didn’t want me to see her die.”

Ben hesitated a moment before he asked the question that immediately popped into his mind. “Did you?”

Rey shook her head. “No, she wouldn’t let me,” she replied, taking a particularly long sip before she continued speaking. “She left me in Paris in the dead of night while I slept… gave me a note telling me not to go after her.”

Heart breaking a little more in his chest, Ben reached across the table again to take her hand, and she gratefully accepted it as she blinked back tears. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, letting his thumb run over the smooth grooves of her knuckles briefly before he tore his hand away, not wanting anyone to question his gesture. “I wish that hadn’t happened to you.”

“I think about the alternative, though… It’s… when you leave them first or… in this case, they leave you… it’s almost like they could still be out there somewhere.” She swallowed nervously, leaning her arms against the tabled as she shifted forward. “In the same way you’re always out there.”

“That’s a fair point…” he replied, looking down at his own hands, remembering the day he’d decided to leave in the midst of the plague. Sometimes in his nightmares he could still remember the squelching sound of the knife cutting through her flesh, the way they had both screamed, the tears falling onto his cheeks as he held her close, whispering his apologies into her ear until she went cold, and the family he’d built was gone. “After Gwen I spent a lot of time wandering through the countryside… lost in Spain…”

“How was it?” she asked, sipping again from her drink. “I took the sea route, I’ve been hopping around the coast of half the continent.”

He looked up at the ceiling for a moment, taking his time to think about it. “It was beautiful, but I don’t think I noticed for the first twenty years.” They locked eyes again, both knowing exactly how that sentence was going to end without him having to finish it, but he did anyway. “I was too lost in my own sorrow to see anything.”

“It’s so odd to be able to talk about this… I… For centuries I kept it to myself, and you… It’s nice to be able to talk to you about it,” she told him, sipping her wine again. “But I also feel like it’s the only thing we talk about sometimes.”

It was a good point. Half of what they talked about tended to revolve around their immortality. They hadn’t really sat down and had a conversation about the more mundane and trivial things of daily life yet. They hadn’t exchanged stories of humor or tales of adventure, but they’d also for the better part of the last several centuries they’d known one another been vicious enemies. His gaze again fell to the sword strapped to her side, the one that had run him through twice now. He sincerely hoped it wouldn’t do it a third. 

If they were going to be friends now, they were going to have to learn how to talk to each other. “What else did you have in mind?” he asked curiously, then she blinked her surprise, as if she hadn’t expected him to actually follow her up on that statement. 

“I… I’m not sure… what do people usually talk about?” 

“I… I don’t know that either, but… perhaps we ought to keep drinking… I’ve heard that’s a way to find out,” he replied.

Rey looked at him with a glint in her eyes that bordered on mischievous. “You just want to get me drunk, Ben…” She paused a moment, frowning, then she looked up at him. “Have I ever learnt your surname?”

He blinked at her in surprise of her question. A family name was not something he thought often about having, and he was struggling in that moment to recall what must have been important to him at some point. Did he even have a surname? Was there anything of him to designate that he  _ had  _ a family? “I don’t know it… So I don’t think you have…” he answered her after a while, then he took another sip of his wine. “Have I ever learned yours?”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t remember mine either… It’s been too long, which is odd, because I stayed in Jakku for decades after the last of them… died…” Rey grew quiet, suddenly, and sensing the topic was as sensitive for her as it was for him, he waved the bar keep over, and demanded more wine to fill their cups. 

Once more liquid was sloshing around in the metal, Ben shifted forward in his seat, leaning on the table as he spoke, “Have you ever been drunk?”

A small snort left her at his question. “Of course, I have? Have you?” she asked and he just cocked his head at her with a silent response that made her laugh, that musical sound that had filled his dreams when they didn’t go straight into the darkness of a nightmare. “Drink up, Ben… I want to know what you’re like inebriated.”

Giving her a brief smirk, Ben kept his eyes trained firmly on hers while she mimicked the expression, and the two took a sip of their wine in tandem, the first night of their true friendship kicking off with a strong buzz that took no time settling itself into his bloodstream. Maybe the wine was more potent that night in usual, he mused, or maybe he was just drunk on the feeling of not being so alone. He’d never admit it out loud, but having company — in particular the company of Rey — made him feel better than all the years he spent alone. 

The night progressed at an increasingly drunken pace. By the time they’d decided to leave the tavern, he and Rey were having to lean on one another to stand and earning odd looks from his neighbors, but for the first time in possibly his entire life, he was having too much fun to care. They walked down the street under the light of a waxing gibbous moon, the ocean shining just off to the side beyond the beach, waves lapping up against the sides of boats on the docks, making them rock side to side in the night as the two drunken friends made their way down the cobblestones. Where they were going, he wasn’t sure, but they were making good time on it. 

“Seven glasses of wine… I’m impressed…” Ben slurred as they slowly wandered down the street together. “You didn’t tell me you could hold your liquor…”

“I could’ve kept going if you hadn’t stopped me,” she replied, then she patted his chest absentmindedly with the back of her hand. “But you had  _ nine,  _ Ben I’m amazed you’re still standing.”

His response was a soft little giggle as his foot kicked a cobblestone. “I could’ve kept going too…”

“No… Not without making a fool of yourself, you couldn’t,” she replied, then she, too, giggled. “But did you see the looks the barkeep kept shooting us all night?”

“Oh, certainly, I’m sure Pablo thinks I’m having an affair with a man, now,” he replied, then he shook his head. “But he won’t say anything, he’s seen plenty of that in his time.”

Rey was grinning impishly up at him. “And have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Have you ever had an affair with a man?”

“ _ Rey,”  _ he breathed, clutching his chest in mock scandal. “How dare you ask me such frivolous questions?” She laughed obscenely in response, and he couldn’t fight the broad grin that burst forth on his face. “Yes… I have.”

The mock scandal she boasted on her face brought out the most genuine laughter Ben had given anyone in years, and he almost missed how she was smiling up at him in its aftermath, her eyes twinkling with a delight he’d never seen directed at himself. He was finding rather quickly that he enjoyed that feeling as mischief rose within him, and he nudged her arm gently. “And what about you?”

“What  _ about  _ me?”

“Have you ever done the same?”

“Oh, certainly. When you live this long, love… it doesn’t matter where it comes from, I don’t think it matters anymore who warms your bed,” she admitted, then as an afterthought, she added, “I’m not certain it ever did.”

“Neither am I… it’s just another part of the mystery of whatever happened before the lightning.” At this, she stopped walking, and he in turn stopped in front of her, turning to face Rey with a bewildered look on his face. “What is it?”

Her drunken gaiety he’d faded into an intrigued sort of horror as she stared at him. “That’s your first memory, too? The lightning?” Rey’s voice was steady and perfectly sober, though her hands trembled at her sides as she watched him. “That and nothing else?”

He gave a firm nod, his own drunken delight washed away with the revelation that they’d had the exact same beginning. “I remember being on a horse, I was heading to wherever home was and then…”

“And then you couldn’t die?”

Another nod. “Precisely.”

There was another pause, then they continued walking down the street together in silence until they reached the docks near his home. Rey was the first one to speak as they passed her ship, still docked and waiting for a crew to take it out to see Come the hours of the morning. Ben, though, suspected those hours were already upon them, but it was still hours yet before the sun would show its face over the land to the east. “I suppose I should be on my way, then,” she told him. 

“To where?” he asked curiously, wondering just where she could have to go at such a late hour of the evening. 

A soft giggle escaped her. “To find an inn, I need somewhere to stay for the night, Ben.”

“Oh,” he replied, an idea forming in his mind before he could even process it, leaving his lips before he could stop it— “why don’t you just stay with me?”

“What?”

“Stay with me. I have plenty of room, you wouldn’t have to worry about finding somewhere.” He hoped his voice didn’t sound too hopeful, he was only asking because it was the polite thing to do, to not make her spend her money and not for any nefarious reasons. They certainly weren’t on the level of that anyway, and he didn’t think they ever would be. Sure, they shared a connection based on the common factor of their immortality, but… anything beyond this extremely tentative friendship they had built was unlikely. With every fiber of his being, he hoped she understood his intentions, and didn’t mistake them for anything less than honorable. 

Still she looked a little bit shocked and hesitant to accept his offer, her expression neutral as she stared ahead blankly, the look of someone lost deeply in thought. After a while, though, she finally met his gaze, and nodded. “Alright, if it’s not too much, I wouldn’t want to impose myself on you.”

“It’s not at all… I promise.”

“And it’s just for the night?”

“Rey, I lived in your house for two years once, I think you’re more than welcome to stay in mine for as long as you like,” he replied, then she grinned at him, and he held out his arm. With a dramatic roll of her eyes, she took it, and the two of them walked the remainder of the distance down the street in a peaceful quiet that carried on until they crossed the threshold of his front door, then Ben took out a match, and lit a nearby lantern, illuminating the front portion of his living space. 

To the left, a couple of well made chairs he’d bought with stolen money sat in front of a fire with a table placed between them, and a stack of books residing over the top of it. To the right sat a tiny kitchen where once upon a time a previous house owner might’ve had people working the house under what Ben presumed to be terrible conditions — he was no fool to what human beings were capable of doing to one another, he’d seen it for himself many times. 

“This is home,” he told Rey, then he led her toward a staircase, which was even shorter than the one she’d had in her home outside of Calais, and down the hallway toward his spare bedroom. “It’s more than I’ve ever had, if we’re being honest, it’s a bit excessive, but I think after all we’ve been through, a little excess might be alright.”

Rey snorted quietly behind him as they walked into a room with a well made bed and simple decorations. “You ever have guests over?” she asked. 

“No… Not here. Not yet,” he replied, walking further into the room. “I’ve thought about it a few times, certainly, but… No.”

She gave him a soft nod. “I understand. I haven’t entertained guests much myself as of late.” 

Another small grin grew on his face as he made his way back toward the door. “Looks like we’re both stubborn, lonely fools, then.”

“Looks like.”

He paused at the door’s threshold, then he swallowed nervously. “Well, if you need anything… my door is the last one down the hall…” With an anxious chuckle, he scratched the back of his head, ruffling his wavy hair in the process. “It’s not a terribly large hall.”

Looking at him almost fondly, Rey flopped herself down onto the bed, crossing one booted foot over the other as her bag fell to the floor. “You know me, I never need anything.”

“Until you do,” he replied almost involuntarily, not quite sure what had compelled him to say it. Shaking his head of his own thoughts, he turned around to leave, not looking as he walked out with only a brief utterance of, “Goodnight, Rey.”

In his haste to leave, he almost missed the quiet whisper of her voice as she replied, “Night, Ben.” But he did hear it, and inexplicably his heart raced in his chest as he shut her door behind him, and walked down the hallway toward his. Thinking about why his heart was pounding was going to have to wait for another time, another day, another century. 

He certainly wouldn’t be thinking about it tonight, no sir, he would not. 

As Ben dressed for bed, though, it was all he could think about, and he didn’t know what it meant. Throughout the centuries, he’d bonded with people in many ways. He’d made friends, known people who helped him to pass the time, but he didn’t know what to make of the weird one he got from Rey. 

It wasn’t even a definite feeling. It wasn’t a “yes, this is it,” it was more of a, “maybe,” a “perhaps,” a “someday.” It could even be called almost. Whatever it was, though, it was a beginning, and it left Ben tossing and turning in his bed for a good hour as he pondered just what the hell it was going to lead to. They’d started off as ferocious enemies, they’d run one another through with swords and given each other their most vehement hatred, but now they’d shared a home, and now she was sleeping just a door away from him. 

After what felt like forever contemplating his feelings uselessly, Ben decided to pin it aside for the next century, or at least the next fifty years if he didn’t feel like waiting. That was one benefit to living forever, he could take however long he wanted to solve his problems. With that thought, Ben finally closed his eyes, wrapped an arm under his pillow, and let himself drift into a dreamless sleep.


	9. The Coast of Portugal, 1487 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow I planned to only have Portugal be a two chapter arc but these two demanded a third chapter, so this isn't the last we'll be seeing of 1487. We've got a bit to go. 
> 
> Also sorry that updates will be a bit more sporadic, I decided four WIPs at the same time was a good idea.

Rey woke up in the middle of the night from another nightmare. In this one, she was dreaming vividly about the morning she’d woken up to find that Jess had left her, only this time when she’d walked outside their house, she’d found her dead and decaying body lying cold and dead on the streets. She’d wailed upon that realization, sobbed, cried, and fallen to the floor beside her, clutching her friend in her arms as terror washed over her body. 

It was just like so many dreams she’d had before, and yet she fell for it every time.

Waking up had been a blessing and a curse. For the first few seconds, she forgot where she was, and the panic that shot through her veins was a fresh wave of shock that she hadn’t been prepared for, but then she realized she was safe as the memories of the day before came back to her. She and Ben had reunited once she’d gotten off the ship at the docks, and gone off to get drinks together to celebrate their new and still very fragile friendship. They’d laughed, talked, and joked like they’d been friends all along instead of vicious enemies, and it had been absolutely wonderful.

This also marked the first time in more than a century that she’d woken up with the knowledge that Ben was just down the hall, and the odd sense of comfort that brought her. For some reason, that made her smile as she sank back into her pillows, attempting to find sleep again as the night dragged on, but her confusion over the man sleeping in the house was overwhelmingly distracting. 

Eventually, she gave up, and slowly rolled out of bed, unsure of exactly what she was doing, but knowing that she was just wasting seconds of her impossibly long life lying there in bed. Before she knew it, though, her feet were carrying her down the hall toward Ben’s bedroom, and she stared at the wood almost hypnotically as it grew closer. She would swear she’d never walked more slowly in her entire life; the distance between her room and his down the very short hallway seeming like a thousand years went by before she finally reached it. 

Nerves nearly stopped her. She wasn’t sure why she was so nervous, but there was something in the air that made her feel as if she was crossing a threshold, whether or not she was meant to cross it was up in the air. Taking in a deep breath, Rey raised her knuckles to his door, and tapped on it three times. 

Almost immediately she considered turning tail and running back toward her bedroom to let him think it was just something of his nightmares waking him up, but before she could make her move, the door opened. Behind it, Ben stood looking a bit sleepy and disheveled from what had likely been a long few hours of tossing and turning uncomfortably in the night. It would seem she hadn’t been the only one having nightmares that evening. 

“Rey? What’s going on?” he asked, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it, almost a whisper. 

She didn’t know what to say. When Rey had made the decision to come to his bedroom, she hadn’t done so with a plan. No, she’d just gone because she had nothing better to do, and now she’d interrupted his sleep. Guilt filled her as she stepped away from his door, tugging at the sleeve of the clothes she’d worn the day before as she contemplated how to make a swift, but not forced exit. “Nothing, I… I don’t really know what I’m doing here… I’ll go, sorry to have disturbed you.”

Ben shook his head, then he stepped out into the hallway with her, and leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, it’s alright,” he assured her, the look in his eyes warm as they met hers. It was such a far cry from the man she’d fought on a beach two hundred years earlier, she almost couldn’t believe they were the same people. “What brought you here?”

With a sigh, Rey dropped her hands to her sides, and shrugged. “I… I couldn’t sleep,” she told him. “The nightmares were keeping me up again.”

Recognition dawned on him, and a frown crossed his features. “I… are you alright?” The question was asked in a way that suggested he wanted to know more, but given the newness of their friendship, he didn’t want to press her in the wrong way. 

“I’m fine, I just… I’m not going to go back to sleep tonight,” she muttered bitterly. “And I was bored.”

Ben nodded in understanding, likely knowing exactly what was going on in her head from the many times he’d witnessed it in himself. “Did you just want to talk?” he offered, then she nodded, and he gave her a tiny hint of a smile. “Come in, then.” He cocked his head in the direction of his bedroom. “There’s something you should see.”

Her eyes went a little wide. “What? In your room?” He gave another nod, and suddenly she could feel her pulse racing beneath her skin. To be in a man’s bedroom without being wed to him had been considered a sin and a societal don’t for all the centuries she’d been alive thus far. But when has she and Ben ever cared about societal convention? They’d broken just about every rule in the books already just by staying in the same home together. And at present, she was dressed like a man, so any rule was technically not being broken in the public eye — not that she cared. 

She was being stupid, she knew. It was just a room, and this was just Ben, her friend and ally who understood her better than anyone else she’d ever met. Rey needed to start acting like a friend rather than a blushing child. At least, she sure hoped she wasn’t blushing at the thought of entering his bedroom. Her cheeks certainly felt rather hot. 

After what felt like another five centuries, Rey finally nodded, and together the two of them walked into Ben’s room, which was amongst the more luxurious places she’d ever seen aside from the palaces of Kings and the castles of lords. But the elegant furniture and the rather comfortable looking bed weren’t what caught her eye, no, that roll belonged to the window to her left, which shone a brilliant blue light through its glass pane from the full moon. 

Ben led her up to the window, and the two of them stopped before it, gazing out at the moonlight reflecting off the shimmering, ripples waters of the Atlantic Ocean. She’d lived on coastal areas before, spent decades by oceans, but something about viewing it like this from a slight rise so she could look out into it as it stretched toward the horizon, on and on and on until forever. There was no telling when it — like their eternal life — would end, and there was something oddly beautiful about that. 

“I sometimes look at this when I can’t sleep,” Ben told her, and her gaze flickered to him only briefly before she was staring at the ocean again. “It’s calming, looking out into the distance, wondering what’s on the other side…”

“You think there’s another shore out there?” she asked curiously, pondering it herself now. “Beyond the horizon?”

His initial response was a shrug she caught out of the corner of her eye. “I’ve heard things from men who sail.” There was something mystical about the way he spoke, like he was telling her some grand fairytale instead of the actual truth. Perhaps sometimes, the truth was like a fantasy, and maybe on rare occasion good things did happen. “They’ve all been to places— new coasts that I’ve never even dreamt of and they’re only decades old at most.”

“As most men are.”

“My point is, one day, I’m going to sail out there,” he told her, and she saw his hand reach forward to push the window open. The cool ocean breeze wafted in from beyond, blowing her hair from her face as she continued staring into the sea’s black and blue depths. “And I’m going to find out what’s on the other side.”

Rey scoffed. “If there’s anything on the other side.”

A slight hum was given to her in response. “That’s the thing about living forever, I’ll have the time to sail to the ends of the Earth and back if I have to.”

It sounded nice; sailing off into the great, blue depths and into forever, getting away from a world where the only thing people seemed to do was die, but did she have the strength to do it? If he went off into the distance, would she ever be able to follow? Would she ever find him again? They’d been consistently on the same land mass for the last several centuries, and that had already made it difficult to find one another. If they were an ocean away…

She wasn’t sure why the prospect bothered her so much, but it did, and she remained silent for a while, just watching as the waves came into the shore, lapping up on the beach, and taking away the sand into their white crests. “It’s probably beautiful out there,” she said, then she glanced at him, finding he was still staring out at the ocean, the breeze blowing his hair back from his face. 

The light of the moon shone off his pale face, making him look even more youthful than she suspected he’d actually been the last time he’d aged. There was no hint of him having even one wrinkle by his eyes, even though she’d known him for nearly five centuries. Sometimes it truly amazed her just how long they’d lived; how much they’d seen. It was more than even she could comprehend most days. But in that moment, watching Ben looking at the sea like it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen, she could believe it. She wasn’t sure what, but there was something in his eyes that held every single one of his many, many years, telling her he was centuries older than he seemed. 

Her thoughts were interrupted a moment later by the man she was staring at as the corners of his mouth tilted upward. “I’m a little terrified by the prospect of going, I’ll admit,” he told her, then he crossed his arms, and leaned against the open windowsill. “I’ve been on this continent my entire life, but… Rey, what is eternal life if we spend it all doing the same things?”

“We don’t do the same things every day,” she pointed out, then he shook his head. 

“It’s a cycle, Rey.” He glanced over at her then, his expression perfectly sober as his eyes met hers. “A never ending cycle of spending a few years in one place, then moving before people realize that we’re not changing the way they are. If I have to do that, I should actually go out and see places, not waste the time I have.”

She looked down at the ground. “Maybe,” she replied. “But maybe you ought to wait until you know what’s out there. The ocean is… a terrifying place.”

“Not to a man who can’t die.”

“Maybe it should be.” At this, she let out a yawn, which caused her to blink in surprise, since she hadn’t realized just how tired she was getting. “I think I’m getting a bit tired again. I should… I should get to bed.”

He opened and closed his mouth a few times, looking tempted to say something, but he didn’t seem to have the confidence to say it. After watching him internally battle with himself for a while, she scoffed, and placed her hands on her hips. “What?”

“You said you were having nightmares.”

“Yeah, so?”

Scratching the back of his head, Ben shut the window, and walked over to the large bed with the comfortable looking mattress before sitting down on it. “I don’t know about you, but on nights where I couldn’t sleep, having someone in the bed… or even in the house helped.”

Rey blinked at him a few times in disbelief. Was he… was he asking her to share a  _ bed  _ with him? They’d already pushed limits just by being in the same bedroom, but they’d never done anything like this for all their drunken camaraderie from earlier. Sharing Ben’s bed would be the most intimate thing they’d ever done, and depending on what happened, it would push the boundaries of their friendship. It would—

She stopped her thoughts about where it  _ could  _ lead before they could start. Thinking about Ben like that wasn’t something she needed to have on her mind. It was the  _ last  _ thing she needed to have on her mind, as a matter of fact. What she needed to think about was his offer. 

Ben was right that sleeping in the same bed as another tended to help abate the nightmares, but at the same time… there was something both terrifying and exciting about getting into bed with him. That nightmare she’d just had, though, was seriously making her consider it. 

No, she wasn’t just considering it; she’d made up her mind the minute he’d asked, and she was going to do it. 

With a slight nod, Rey walked around to the other side of the bed, and sat down on it. She heard his breath shudder as they sat there for a while, back to back in the aftermath of her agreement to spend the night with him, then slowly, they shifted at the same time so that they were both lying down on the mattress. Swallowing her nerves, she cleared her throat. “So what now?” she asked, them they both laughed anxiously. 

“Now we sleep,” he replied, then she felt the bed shift as he shrugged. “Or rather, we try to.”

Her response came out in a faint whisper. “That sounds good.”

“Good night, Rey.”

“Good night, Ben,” she said quietly, then she shut her eyes, and listened to the sound of the waves coming in through the still slightly opened window, and let the ocean lull her to sleep. 

*

The sound of gulls cawing in the morning woke her up from the most peaceful sleep she’d had in her many, many centuries of life. Rey actually smiled as she blinked awake, mercifully free from the lingering horrors of any nightmares, even the ones she’d had before joining Ben. 

In fact, she was so blissful that morning, she almost forgot about everything that had ever happened to her. She forgot about the immortality, about the endless sea of ghosts that haunted her, and just let herself be lost to the First morning she’d thoroughly enjoyed in a long time. 

Ben would  _ never  _ find out about how happy this had made her, though. Her new friend was the type to brag a little, and Rey’s pride couldn’t handle that sort of hit, she’d be feeling it for decades. 

Speaking of Ben, she became increasingly aware as she woke up that he was no longer sleeping soundly beside her, but he’d already gotten up and left. Before any worry or panic could set in, though, she heard the sound of metal clanging to the floor in his kitchen below, and a little smile rose to her face. He was already up and making breakfast, and from the smell of it, he’d spent a bit too much money on some sort of sausage. 

Rey was wide awake from that smell, and immediately she hopped to her feet, throwing back Ben’s sheets — she must have crawled beneath them in the night — and hurriedly headed down the hall into “her,” room to grab her boots. She nearly fell over several times in her mad dash to put them on, but managed to do so without injury. 

Not that it would’ve mattered if she did injure herself, all she would’ve done was stain the floorboards. 

Eventually she made her way downstairs, finding Ben sitting at a little dining room table with the food already set out in two places with little intricately carved stools placed casually in front of them. She leaned against the door frame as she walked into the room, then waited until he noticed she was up to walking further. “This seat taken?”

“Yeah, I’m waiting for an old friend.”

“Old, huh?”

Ben nodded very seriously. “Yes, she’s been around a few centuries, a proper elder.”

She marched forward, and took the other seat beside him with a smirk on her face. “You’re one to talk.”

All he gave her in response was a shrug, then he took a sip of his drink, which she gauged to be wine based on the little red stain it left on his upper lip, forcing her to notice how full his lips were for the first time. Even without the wine they were plush looking and seemed to be permanently stained by the juice of cherries. 

Quickly, she turned away, feeling her cheeks flush as she reached out for the glass he’d set at her table. “So how long have you been awake?”

“About an hour longer than you,” he told her, watching as she took a sip. “I woke up, saw you were still sleeping, and decided to do something nice.”

She gave him a warm smile, then she glanced at the food. “This looks nice. You usually do this for your friends?”

“I don’t have anyone over often enough to know,” he admitted. “So far at this house it’s just been you.” Ben shifted uncomfortably for a second, then he took a breath. “I… how did you sleep, by the way? Did it help?”

_ God yes.  _ It had been maybe the best night of sleep she’d ever gotten. At least, it was the best one she’d had in her memory. Peace was a rare feeling she knew little of, but that night, knowing she wasn’t alone, knowing the person she was with wouldn’t just fade away, she somehow managed to sleep without that shadow that always lingered over her, and it was wonderful. “Yeah, it did, um…” She paused, both wanting to tell him everything about how it felt and nothing at all. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, then he set down his glass. “So… now that you’re here, how long do you plan on staying?”

Rey nearly spit out her drink. In all honesty, she hadn’t thought about it, since she thought she’d have more time than just getting off her ship the night before. When he’d left their home outside Calais, his only instruction had been to head to Portugal if she wanted to find him. She’d let enough time elapse that she had become certain he wouldn’t be there when she arrived, much less practically waiting for her at the dock. 

Sure, she’d wanted to find him, but how long they would journey together was another story entirely. 

“I… I’m not sure,” she said, picking at the meat presented before her, and shoving a piece into her mouth. “I hadn’t thought about it, I just figured I’d see what you were up to.”

“Oh.”

“And besides, weren’t you planning on crossing the Atlantic?”

“That can wait a little while,” he reminded her, gesturing vaguely to the world around them. “I’ve got time.”

“No shortage of it, that’s for certain.”

“Indeed,” he replied, then Ben leaned forward, propping his forearms on the table. “The weather’s looking to be nice again today, we should walk around, you should see the beach. It’s beautiful out there, almost makes this whole miserable hell worth living.”

Rey hummed her assent. “That sounds nice.”

“It ought to be,” Ben murmured, then he took another sip of his wine. “We should be able to leave within the hour. Maybe if we have enough time left in the day I can show you the library.”

“There’s a library?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose there are magicians and dragons, too?”   


“Ha ha,” he grumbled. “Very funny.”

All she did in response was stick her tongue out at him, causing Ben to laugh as they resumed eating their meal at a pace that wasn’t rush, but wasn’t quite leisurely either. They had a day to make, and despite their immortal lives, Rey didn’t intend on wasting it. 

*

An hour later they left the house walking side by side as Ben led them down the street toward a beach of golden sand. The waves of the Atlantic brushed up against it rhythmically, the sound soothing to her ears as they stepped out onto it, and she listened to the grains crunching beneath the brown leather of her boot. A strong breeze blew the flyaway strands of her hair from her face as they walked up to the water’s edge, then followed its trail into the distance. 

“Last time we were on a beach together we ran each other through,” she recalled, and Ben gave a small chuckle. 

“Oh, sweet memories,” he replied sarcastically, then the two of them burst into a round of half-sarcastic laughter. 

Rey tilted her head back, closing her eyes as she relished in the sun’s rays shining down on her face. This journey on the beach was such a far cry from the last one they’d taken together, when they’d been at war and the sky was overcast and gray, and she had felt nothing but rage upon seeing him. 

That morning, she had been rather delighted when she’d woken up to the smell of the meal he’d cooked for them both. Two centuries had gone by since their vicious fight on that beach; both an eternity and not much time at all, and things had changed so much. 

“Yes, I quite miss kicking your arse,” she said, mischief in her expression as she looked at him out of the corner of her eye. 

Ben scoffed. “Oh, you kicked my arse? I seem to recall I stabbed you, too, Rey.”

“Fair, but the time we fought before that I definitely ran you through before you could even think to do the same to me.” She nudged him then with her shoulder, and he laughed as he shook his head. 

“Do you really want to start that?”

“Start what? I wasn’t doing anything,” she replied innocently.

Ben hummed his disbelief, then they managed to keep walking down the beach in peace. They fell quiet for a while, seeming to just bask in one another’s company as they strolled casually like she’d heard old lovers did. The implications of that thought, though, she refused to dwell on. They were friends—  _ barely even friends.  _ Thoughts like that were intrusive and forbidden, and she wouldn’t allow herself to think them. 

Not for another century or two, at least. 

“This place is beautiful,” Rey said after a while, splashing at an incoming wave with the toe of her boot before it retreated back out to sea. “I bet you wish you’d never have to leave.”

“Only to find out what’s out there,” he replied. A smile grew broad on his face. “For all we know it could be a new world, and how many of us will ever get the chance to see it?”

“It could be nothing.”

“On the contrary; it could be  _ everything. _ ” His voice had an almost mystical quality to it, like he was actively imagining far off places and grand adventures. For the first time, Ben almost looked like he was looking forward to something in his life. No, this wasn’t the first time, this was the second. The first had been when he was telling her goodbye a century and a half ago, and he’d told her where to find him. She’d seen it in his eyes, as impossible as it was, that he was looking forward to the day they would reunite. 

He wasn’t exactly alone in that, though. She’d been looking forward to it as well. 

“I think you’ve been reading too many books.”

“I think you haven’t read enough,” Ben retorted, then he was grinning again. “Just watch, Rey, one day the coast on the other side of that ocean is going to be important. It’ll be something, and I’ll get to say, ‘I told you so.’”

She rolled her eyes, then she nudged him again with her elbow. “You are such an arse.”

“Are you surrendering already?”

“As we established, I’ve beaten you twice, do you really think that I’m surrendering?”

Ben held up a finger. “Technically, you only beat me once, we tied the second round,” he reminded her, then she was giggling again as another gust of wind blew past them. “But challenge accepted.”

“Excellent,” she replied, then they walked on down the beach, holding conversation like true friends would, and Rey started to feel like finally, she was excited for her future, wherever it may lead, because she could always count upon Ben to be there. 

*

Another hour later, they were lying side by side in the sand, letting the breeze dry them off as the gulls cawed overhead. Cumulus clouds dotted the skyline, providing their eyes occasional reprieve from the sun’s harsh rays.

Rey wasn’t complaining about the sun, though. It was warm when it shone down on them, and while the cold wouldn’t exactly kill her — it wasn’t even cold enough to kill a mortal — she certainly didn’t prefer it. Warmth was a luxury she enjoyed partaking in, and she had a feeling she’d experience a lot of it here on the Portuguese coast until the summer breeze eventually gave way to autumn. 

“You think the clouds look like shapes sometimes?” she asked him, pointing up at a cloud that particularly resembled a horse. 

Ben shrugged beside her, the sand grains crunching beneath his broad shoulders. “... You know… I think you may be right.”

“I told you so.”

All she got in response was a mocking glare, then Ben sat up, and pointed to the sky. “Is that the one you were talking about?” he asked. “The one that looks like a horse?”

She nodded. “That’s the one.”

“Huh… Looks like I’ll have to start paying attention to the sky from now on.”

Rey grinned as she sat up with him, and brushed sand off of her chest, noticing that in the near hour they’d been lying there, her clothes had finally dried. “Think we’ll be able to go to the library now?”

“Yeah,” Ben replied, then he pushed himself onto his feet, and held out a hand to her. “Time for you to read some books.”

“Will I be as deluded about other worlds as you are after?” she asked, taking his hand, and allowing him to pull her to her feet. 

“Hopefully more.” He then gave her a wink, and she swatted his arm as the two of them walked up the beach, and back toward his home. 

The sun had just passed high noon when they made their way into the library. Elderly men in robes nodding to Ben and staring quizzically at Rey as if they were trying and failing to place where they’d seen her before. She was new, she’d never been there, and they wouldn’t be able to recognize her no matter how hard they tried. 

There was a hint of a smile on his face as he led her through row upon row of books and scrolls stacked in shelves that reached above both of their heads. Her jaw fell slack as she looked at them all, fascinated by the vast expanse of knowledge that must’ve been contained within the library’s walls. “This is… wow…”

“I know,” Ben replied, and while she knew well that he’d been in here quite a few times himself over the years, she could still see that mystified expression on his face that told her he was amazed by it every time. “How far has humanity come since we were born, do you think?”

“Very. It’s almost like the world of today is a completely foreign one to that which we came into,” she admitted, pulling an aging book from the shelf, and examining the Latin text of its pages. 

Ben let out shocked little hum, and she glanced up from her reading about the importance of keeping witchcraft out of the church. “I didn’t know you could read Latin.”

She rolled her eyes again. “Please, anyone who’s ever read parchment can read latin,” she replied, then she closed the book, and set it back in its place on the shelf. “Jess and I spent a bit of time in Paris teaching each other things from the texts we found there. We used to dress up as men and pretend for a while that we were scholars studying for the betterment of society.”

Amused laughter followed her revelation, then Ben pulled another from a shelf, and the page he opened to had a map of the known world plastered on its pages. “Here’s the world as we know it,” he told her, then he pointed to a tiny little island to the north of the continent they stood on. “That’s where we met. Where we were born.”

“That little island?”

“I don’t think it’s as little as it seems, but yes. That’s where we come from.”

“Wow,” she replied, letting her fingers brush over the paper. “And that’s where you want to go?” She pointed to the Atlantic ocean, which ran from the coast of the European continent to the edge of the map. 

Suddenly she could feel his eyes watching her, and the hands holding the book trembled slightly. “I don’t know,” he replied, his voice so low she almost couldn’t hear it. “Maybe someday.”

Rey couldn’t help the grin that parted her lips as they continued staring at the map, a promise of someday hanging in the air between them, though what the word meant, she had no clue. All she knew was that she was eager to find out, and once more in Ben’s company, she was looking forward to what lay on the horizon.

“Come on,” Ben said, then he gestured to the shelves. “Grab a book, let’s fill your head with wild ideas.”

“You won’t succeed,” she warned him, to which he only gave her another wink. 

_ "Try me, _ ” he murmured, his voice deeper than she’d ever heard it. She pointedly ignored the shivers that were sent up and down her spine as she followed him off to a wooden table, where they sat down, opened their books, and began to read. 

They wound up staying at the library for hours. The sun made its way across the sky overhead, and started to set by the time they decided to leave, and Ben led her back to his home with smiles on their faces. Ahead of them, the setting sun painted the sky vibrant shades of orange, pink, and purple, making it seem like it was born of smoke and fire as its light shone warmly on their faces. Rey was half tempted to lean into him as they walked, but they were in public, and they’d already pushed boundaries with their beach walk earlier. 

Chancing another questionable stare wasn’t worth the trouble.

“This place is beautiful,” Rey said, then she nudged his arm, figuring she could at least indulge the weird urge she had to touch him in that way. “I wonder why you’d ever want to leave.”

“I think I’ll stay a little while longer,” he told her.

“Really?” she asked, then she turned, watching as the wind blew a lock of his black, wavy hair -- had it always been so long and… admittedly kind of beautiful? -- into his face, making her laugh at the sight. “You’re not going to go off to whatever’s on the horizon?” 

Ben looked out to the horizon, then back at her with a warm smile on his face. “It’ll still be there when I decide to go, but you just got here, and… I’m getting the idea you don’t want to come with me when I go.”

“Ben…”

“No, it’s okay. We’ve only just become friends, asking you to cross an ocean you don’t know would be too much of me,” Ben replied as they came upon his house, pausing outside his door-frame. “I’ll wait until you’re ready or until you decide to leave. Whichever comes first, then I’ll go.”

“What if I stayed forever?” she joked, but quickly realized the implications. “Obviously I couldn’t, but… Hypothetically?”

“Then I guess… hypothetically, if I’m keeping my word, I’ll stay here forever, too.”

She beamed at him, then her expression sobered, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “So you’re okay with me staying here, then? For a little while?”

“Of course, you let me stay with you for two years,” he replied, then he turned, and opened his front door. “I owe you a favor, if you’ll accept it.” Then with the door held in one hand, he held out his other for her, and she only pretended to hesitate a moment before she finally took it, and let him lead her inside feeling almost a little giddy with excitement. 

There was a looming sense of dread on the horizon, but for the first time, Rey wasn’t afraid of it, she had too much to actually look forward to in her immediate future to care. It was such a rare feeling, but she finally felt like her life was heading somewhere instead of just being an endless pit of suffering, because there wasn’t just sorrow in her future, no, as she followed Ben inside, she recognized the other thing that awaited her on that distant shore; hope. 


	10. The Coast of Portugal, 1487 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, I made the mistake of editing this to the Titanic soundtrack so that's how my day is going, but fuck it was the perfect atmosphere... Anyway, sorry this took so long, my other WIP, What Happens in Canto Bight, has taken over my life, and then this chapter absolutely kicked my ass, but it's here.

Seagulls cawing was the first thing Ben heard when he woke up the next morning, waking to find the sunlight filtering in on his face through the eastern window on the other side of the room from the one providing a view of the ocean. A groan left his lips as he blinked away the blinding light, then moved to turn away from it, only to find that he was pinned by something, though what it was, he had no idea. 

Looking down, he realized very quickly that he wasn’t alone in the bed, and immediately after that he was being held in place by Rey as she wrapped her arms around him. In her defense, he had an arm wrapped around her as well, holding her tightly against him as one of his legs wedged its way between hers, hooking around her calf to pull her as tightly against him as was humanly possible. 

It took Ben a second to process what had happened. The night before, they’d sat in his bed talking for a few hours… At some point she’d dozed off, or maybe he’d dozed off, and neither of them had thought to move in the aftermath. Perhaps they’d fallen asleep at the same time. 

That still didn’t explain why the hell they were completely tangled up in one another, holding each other like they were long lost lovers instead of newly friends. The night hadn’t even been particularly cold, and had in fact been rather warm. In that moment, he was actually burning up thanks to their shared body heat and the light of the sun. There was truly no excuse for them to be so thoroughly entwined, and yet they were. 

_ How odd.  _

She stirred in his arms, but didn’t wake, and simply buried her face further into his neck, the air of her breath tickling the skin there as it cooled the stickiness he could describe as pre-sweat in the growing light of day. It was then that he also realized he had a hand threaded through her hair, his fingers entangled in her brunette locks tinged auburn by the orange light of the rising sun. 

It was a rather pretty sight, if he were being honest with himself. Rey was… admittedly… very beautiful. Hypnotic was perhaps the best word to describe her hazel eyes, a freckled nose, and smile that radiated warmth like the sun when it was genuine and full like he’d seen in the last two days with her. Even dressed in men’s clothing, she was one of the most beautiful people he’d ever seen, and in his time, he’d seen quite a few. 

But he couldn’t think about Rey like that. She was  _ Rey _ , she was only just becoming his friend. To think of her as beautiful… it wasn’t offensive, but those thoughts were starting to hinge on frames that were too weak to prevent them from falling into the abyss that was something else entirely. 

Rey mumbled something in her sleep, and Ben felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward at the sound. He allowed himself to hold her then, closing his eyes against the glare of the sun as he searched for the elusive sleep he’d woken from, ignoring the caw of the gulls and the crashing of the waves behind him. The day could wait a little while longer, he thought as his fingers gently stroked her hair. For now, he was going to enjoy the feeling of holding her in his bed as the day begun without them. 

What the implications of his happiness meant, though, he would put aside for another century. Maybe another millenium. Those thoughts were absolutely forbidden until further notice, possibly forever. After all, he had all the time in the world thanks to his inability to age or die. He could quite literally put off facing even the chance that he was starting to feel something deep and profound for Rey for as long as he wanted to. 

*

Ben woke up a while later to find Rey gone, no trace of her left behind but an imprint on the bed upon first glance. Disappointment filled him involuntarily, which he quickly clamped down as he reminded himself that he usually woke up alone, and he’d technically done the same thing to her first. But where was she?

He slowly sat up in bed, hearing the sound of feet shuffling nearby, and took a look toward the window facing the ocean. She stood facing him, but her body was still half turned toward the view of the azure ocean and the cerulean sky. Apparently she’d decided to enjoy the view. “Good morning,” she said, and was there a hint of red on her cheeks or was he just seeing things from having slept in the sun?

“Good morning,” he replied, slowly standing up from the bed, and joining her by the window frame, looking out onto where the waves crashed against the shore, and in the distance, a ship was coming in from sea. “Where do you think it’s coming from?”

“The Mediterranean? Spain? Perhaps the island we came from?” she mused, shrugging her shoulders in surrender after a while. “We have no way of knowing.”

“Not until it docks,” he said, then he cleared his throat. “Um… Sorry for falling asleep last night…”

“No… No, it’s fine, I think I fell asleep first, actually.” She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. “But either way… I didn’t have any nightmares again, so thank you.”

That gave him pause; he hadn’t had any nightmares either. No, the last two nights since he’d slept in the same bed as Rey, he’d had no nightmares. Giving her a warm smile, he sighed as he leaned against the window. “It looks like it’ll be beautiful again today,” he observed, watching the sun shine down on the beach, unobstructed by even the smallest of clouds. 

Rey grinned. “Another beach walk, you think?”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea,” Ben replied, then he looked out the window, staring wistfully out at the ship coming in from the Atlantic as it continued steadily making its way toward the shore. 

“You still want to go out there, don’t you?” she asked him, and Ben, in his obliviousness and dreams of seeing far off shores, didn’t hear the little quiver in her voice that begged him not to. 

If he had, perhaps things would have turned out differently. “I do,” he replied, then he looked down at her again, and he didn’t miss the sadness in her eyes as she stared out at the ship on the water. “But I’m not going to leave right this minute, Rey. You just got here. I want to spend time getting to know my friend before I go  _ anywhere. _ ”

She blinked at him a few times. “Are you sure? I wouldn’t want to hold you back.”

Ben wasn’t sure why he was so certain, but he was. He wanted to spend time with Rey before he left. Since she’d come back into his home, his nightmares had been held at bay, he’d barely even thought of them because for once in his life he was having too much fun. What that meant, though, was like his passing thought that she was beautiful — and hell, if she wasn’t even more so in the light of the rising sun — absolutely forbidden to think about. 

“I’m sure,” he replied, then he took her hand in his. “Come on, let’s get something to eat, then we’ll go give that beach hell.”

Rey chuckled as he dragged her out of his bedroom. “What are we going to do to it?”

“Kick sand?” he asked, then he shrugged, letting go of her hand as they made their way down the stairs. “I am honestly not sure, I was just thinking how nice it was when we walked there yesterday. I think we could probably do it another time or two before it starts getting old.”

“That sounds lovely,” she said, then Ben gave her another grin as they walked into the kitchen, and began to prep their first meal of the day.

*

An hour later he and Rey were walking side by side on the beach again, just barely bumping into one another as the minutes passed and they continued walking, the afternoon sun bearing down on their backs as they walked by the water’s edge. “I’ve always liked beaches,” he told her, splashing her playfully with a bit of water he swept up with his foot. She yelped, and splashed him right back before the wave made its way back out into the ocean. “They’ve fascinated me since I was a child.”

“You remember being a child?”

He shook his head. “No, I just… I remember… A feeling more than anything. I don’t remember my family.”

“Neither do I, but you already know that,” she told him, then she brushed a piece of her hair behind her ear. “Do you ever wish you did remember them?”

“Sometimes,” he replied, then he stopped walking, and turned to face the ocean, watching the light reflecting off of the sea. “I think it’d be interesting to know where I came from, but...I think it’d just break my heart all over again. Maybe we’re better off not knowing.”

Rey hummed her assent. “I think you may be right, but… what little you do remember… was it good?”

Ben turned to look at her then, the corners of his mouth twitching up as he nodded. “Yeah, it was,” he replied, but he was only half talking about his childhood. “Rey… what about you? Do you remember yours?”

“No… Not at all,” she replied, stepping out a little ways into the ocean. They’d both kicked off their boots by a rock near his home, praying that they’d still be there when they returned. That day, Rey wore a dress, allowing herself to appear feminine for the first time since she’d been in his company again. The gown was a muted green, though looked a bit more emerald where the sea soaked it through as the waves lapped at their feet. 

“Do you wish you remembered them?”

“No, same reasons as you,” she told him, then she sighed, and stared out at the horizon. “This place is beautiful… I think I’m going to stay here a while.”

“You do?” he asked, then he looked over at her, and rey was nodding with a smile on her face. “Ah, you do.”

“You did say I was welcome, and you did promise to stay as long as I did,” she replied, then Rey leaned down, and splashed saltwater directly into his face. 

He gave her a look of mock offense, which quickly transformed into one of mischief as he bent down, and did the same thing to her. With a delighted shriek, Rey stepped deeper into the water, splashing Ben with a particularly powerful wave of water. 

_ Two could definitely play at this game. _

Ben came back at her with a vengeance, throwing a wave her way that had her stumbling over the skirts she wore, his name falling from her lips as she cried out in delight. A smile rose to his face as she retaliated, shoving him into the water so that he was lying on his back in the sand, the shallow waves lapping at him as the water from his splash soaked her completely. 

“I’ll get you for that,” he warned her, then the splash fight began anew as he stood up, and launched another wall of water in her direction. 

Rey grasped at his sleeve as she went down, clearly trying to avoid falling, but inevitably failing when she wound up instead just pulling him down with her, and he fell over her at the line where the sand met the sea, bracing himself over her just before he could crush her, catching his weight with the palms of his hands as time came to a complete stop. 

The last time they’d been like this on a beach, they’d been trying to kill each other. Their swords had run through one another’s guts in perfect synchrony, and they’d laid there bleeding for a few seconds, staring up at an overcast sky as things began to shift between them. Ben found himself breathing hard as he remembered that moment, which was such a polar opposite to this one, he almost couldn’t believe they were the same people, but they were. 

Centuries really did change people, didn’t they? He would’ve never thought two hundred years ago that he’d be this comfortable with her, that they’d be laughing, and he’d know what she looked like when she smiled, or how warm she felt in his arms, but he knew that now. He knew it, and it was changing him already.

“Ben,” she breathed, and he couldn’t help but noticing that their faces were a mere few inches apart, and damn it, she had enough freckles on her nose for him to make constellations. Did she have to be so beautiful? It was probably going to kill him. 

Giving her a nervous laugh, Ben rolled off of her, and again the two of them laid down side by side at the water’s edge, soaking wet and smiling like fools as they stared at one another beneath a sunny sky, the eternally shining daytime star bearing witness to the start of another shift in the tide between them. 

They didn’t move for a while, not even as others walked past on the beach. The townspeople, Ben found, were always too lost in their own little worlds to notice the two people starting to slowly fall into something new beneath the waves. 

It wasn’t until another gull cawed overhead that he turned away from her to watch it fly past them, its white belly a blurred streak as it flew by, bringing him back to reality. “We should probably get going,” he said, then he cleared his throat. “I had wanted to take you up to the shops. If you’re going to be staying a while, I’m going to need to restock my food supply.”

Rey sat up, and he followed suit, watching as she pushed herself into a standing position, then she offered him her hand. “Let’s get going then, we’re going to need to change clothes.”

Brushing a strand of hair from his eyes, Ben took her hand, allowing her to pull him up so that they were standing rather close to one another. The more they did it, the less he minded being in such proximity to her, though he was certainly going to need to have a conversation with his racing heart later. 

They walked back up the beach, putting on their shoes by the large, grey sandstone they’d left them by, then headed back up to his house up on the road. Occasionally they’d shoot one another glances, then they’d look away, red flooding their cheeks as they made their way back through his front door. 

Both of them were absolutely dripping on the floor, droplets collecting in little puddles on the floor as he closed the door behind them. The smell of the ocean was strong as he began to head up toward his bedroom, and Rey followed him to the second floor, giving him one last look before she walked inside of hers — which she hadn’t slept a full night in since she’d been there. She only ever seemed to use it when she needed to change clothes.

Ben’s breathing shook as that door shut, then he walked into his own bedroom, trying desperately not to think about her and failing as he undid the laces of his boots, chucking them off as he reached for the ties of his trousers. He couldn’t stop picturing her beneath him no matter how hard he tried to think about anything else. Rey’s hair splayed out like a painting in the water as it drifted past her on its way back to sea, the warmth of her body beneath his, how pink her lips were, and the stunning colors he found in her eyes as they looked up at his through the sunlight. 

He hadn’t noticed a lot of those things until the past couple of days when they’d finally started to notice and spend time around one another, but now that he was noticing them… it was like he couldn’t stop. “Damn it,” he whispered to himself as he finally removed his trousers, then he worked hurriedly at his doublet, which fell to the floor with a loud slapping noise that had Ben wincing. He walked over to the small wardrobe near his door as he reached for the ties of his shirt, letting that fall to the floor as well. Eventually, he’d hang up all of his clothes, but that would wait till he was dressed. 

And until he’d stopped thinking so damn much about Rey, his friend, who was currently…  _ undressing in the other room.  _ Shit. Ben finally managed to push her out of his mind then, and contained his breathing as he undressed the rest of the way, and put on new clothing. Black trousers with a white shirt and a similarly colored doublet that he’d paid too much money for soon covered his body, but they were the nicest things he owned, so he wasn’t exactly complaining about it. They’d last him a while, that was for certain. 

A few minutes later, he walked out of his bedroom to find Rey walking out of hers at the exact same time. Her dress had shifted in its coloring to become a soft brown, the sleeves slashed in places so that the chemise she wore underneath was pulled through in the common, puff-sleeved fashion he’d seen frequently in women’s clothing in recent years. Her hair was down and loose around her shoulders, flowing just beyond them as she closed the door, and the draft blew it back, causing it to turn auburn in the sunlight from the window at the end of the hall. 

“Are you alright?” she asked him as she stepped away from the door, then she paused, and he watched as she looked him over. “You… You look fancy.”

“I wasn’t trying to,” he assured her, though for some reason, he most definitely had been trying to look nice. It was a lie, and he knew it, and he even knew why he told the lie, but he wouldn’t let himself think on it too hard. “Anyway, I’ll gather my things and we’ll… we’ll go into town?” 

She nodded. “That sounds perfect,” she promised him, then he walked over to the top of the staircase, and she followed suit. Ben offered her his arm, and she took it with a soft little smile he was increasingly growing to love by the day.  _ Where had that word come from? _ He hadn’t meant it like  _ that,  _ but… 

They managed to make it out of the house and onto the street without error, and Ben looked over to find Rey staring at the people they passed on the street, at the other pairs of men and women walking by in the afternoon sun as it bore down on them. “What are you thinking about?”

“I wonder what all of them think of us… now that I’m not dressed in men’s clothing.”

“They probably think I’m courting you…” he mused, then realizing what that implied, he cleared his throat, and changed directions. “Or that I paid for your services.” That didn’t help him much either, though, and his trousers suddenly grew tighter at the thought of said “services.”

“They think I’m a prostitute, then?” Rey asked, then she looked over at a couple that gave Ben and Rey a once over, then began to whisper to themselves. “Oh, they definitely think I’m your prostitute.”

“To be fair, you did share my bed.”

Rey scoffed. “You invited me,” she said nudging him slightly as they turned onto another street. “And it isn’t like we did anything. We’re just… acquaintances — just friendly.”

“Society sees any man and woman together as only good for unions of convenience and procreation,” he pointed out. “Anything else is frowned upon and considered a sin.”

“Well, it’s a good thing we can’t die, or we’d be deep in the depths of hell.” They both laughed as they walked along the street, then Ben laid a hand casually over hers. 

“They’re going to have to get used to seeing you, though,” he told her, then he waited until she looked at him again before he finished his sentence. “If you’re going to be staying with me.”

A broad smile parted her lips. “Like I said. As long as you’ll have me, I’ll stay with you. You owe me.”

“Fair,” Ben replied, then they turned onto another street, and came upon the market, commencing what was going to become three of the most wonderful weeks of his long life. 

*

The next few weeks with Rey he almost couldn’t believe were real. They became something that when he was feeling the worst of his many, many years of life, he’d look back on and feel a little bit of a smile grow on his face. Throughout the span of a little under a month, they grew close, and he told her everything — every piece of his life story, every moment of pain, and every moment of delight — and she told him in turn. 

Despite having spent decades at a time with other people, it was the most intimately he had known another human being. The intimacy may have been helped by the fact that throughout those three weeks, Rey only ever slept in her bed a few times, and when she did it was almost an afterthought. They also both had nightmares in the rare nights that they were separated, and wound up in the other’s bed anyway. 

And for those three weeks, his nightmares and hers were mostly at bay. They were at peace, and somehow he managed to keep his frequent thoughts about Rey’s various features at bay, hiding them in the back corner of his mind as it slowly began to process what they meant. As the weeks passed, though, dealing with them became almost bearable. Ben never forgot them, but by the time they woke up on the morning of the twenty first day he’d learned how to manage it. 

_ Or so he thought. _

That day was the third in a row he’d woken up to thunderstorms booming loudly overhead. Either himself or Rey had woken up every time, and both immediately found solace in being awake in the other’s arms. He was aware that most friends didn’t hold each other the way they did, but their need to stay close stemmed from a desperate and dire need that only the other person could understand. As the lightning lit up his window that morning, he held her tightly against him, burying his face in the back of her neck, smelling the sea salt in her hair from the night before when they’d gone swimming during a break break in the endless storms. 

She stirred against him, but didn’t seem to wake even as her fingers laced through his, grasping his hand in her unconscious state. The motion brought a smile to his face, and he wasn’t sure what compelled him to do it, but Ben leaned a scant few inches forward, and placed a tiny kiss at the base of her neck. 

The second his lips pulled away from her skin he froze, a thousand alarm bells going off in his head that he’d just done something serious with emotional consequences. It was in that precise moment he saw the potential of what lay between them, and it was so premature, still so young and new that it wouldn’t show its full face for a while yet to come… but it was already present enough to frighten the hell out of him. 

His mind immediately began searching for an escape from such a realization, finding no solace from his sudden, crippling fear of this unknown feeling that was blooming within him — except for in the faint sound of the waves that continued to crash on the shore outside his home. 

_ The ocean. _

For weeks, his ideas about crossing the Atlantic were forgotten, lost in the background to the fun he was having with Rey. The thought of journeying to a rumored new world was drowned out by a chorus of their laughter and the cawing of gulls as they strode side by side on the beach. It was buried under finding new adventures to go on each day, new books to read in the library, and new things they learned about one another as the time passed. 

Now, though, as he desperately fought away the realization that he might be falling for the woman he’d started to consider his best and only friend, the ocean seemed like a viable option. He could ask her to come with him, but she’d undoubtedly say no, and he’d be allowed a safety net from his feelings for a few decades until he inevitably saw her again. 

He’d think about that in a few hours, though, for now, he was going to let the morning pass like it was any other day. He was going to hold her close, and he wasn’t going to break her heart by telling her he wanted to leave again. Without even thinking, his hand tightened around Rey’s, and he sighed against her, whispering his apologies even though he knew she couldn’t hear them.

Ben had to leave though, right? She could always come with him. He’d have to at least try to convince her to follow him across the ocean, but… something told him she would still say no even after spending all this time with him. It was such a small chunk given how long they’d been alive, but considering it was the two of them, it was practically an eternity. 

Maybe the potential separation would do them good, maybe it would allow him to clear his mind of the thoughts he was having about her. Everyone else had left him tragically. The universe had never been kind to him before, why would it start now? It had already been nice enough to him just allowing him to always have Rey’s friendship, but… allowing him her affections? It would never be so generous. No, it was going to take her away from him like it did everyone else somehow. He could sense it, or maybe it was his own paranoia talking. 

Either way, he had centuries of life to think it through, and he would always see her again. Who knew, maybe she’d still be in Portugal when he got back. After all, most men going out to sea would be gone for only a few months. 

That was what he’d do. He’d go out to sea, explore the world, and come back to her in Ahch To to tell her everything he’d seen. Hopefully he’d come back with a clear head. 

It wasn’t as if he was planning on leaving that morning, either. No, he’d promised Rey he’d stay as long as she wanted him to. He just had to convince her to be alright with him leaving for a few weeks. That wouldn’t be too difficult, would it?

He’d wait until morning to mention the ships, then he’d ease into it, Rey deserved better than him dropping it on her suddenly. Hell, if he was considering leaving for any amount of time whatsoever when they both needed one another, she deserved better than him in general. 

*

Ben stayed awake the rest of the night, holding Rey closely against him as the storm outside howled and raged with all its might against the stone walls of his house. She woke up just before dawn, turning around in his arms so that she was face to face with him, or rather, she would’ve been if her face weren’t buried in the crook of his neck. He rested his chin on the crown of her head, closing his eyes as he sighed contentedly. 

If he left, he was going to miss this. He was going to miss the bliss that came with waking up to Rey in his bed, but… perhaps that shouldn’t have been something he considered so blissful. It certainly didn’t strike him as the most platonic thing they’d ever done. He could only hope that any potential time away would let the feelings that had stirred within him dissipate. 

“Good morning,” he whispered softly, only just resisting the urge to kiss the top of her head. God, he needed time away, and he needed it badly. Her touch was intoxicating. 

Rey hummed beside him. “Good morning,” she replied, wrapping her arm tightly around his waist, pulling him close. In the past few weeks, they’d both found that contact was something they relished in. It made them feel grounded, like they weren’t just drifting at sea and they had an anchor. “Did you sleep well?”

No. No he hadn’t. “The storm woke me up,” he admitted.

“What storm?” A bright flash of lightning illuminated them from outside his beach facing window, then Rey hummed. “Ah, that storm.”

They both snickered quietly as the ensuing boom of thunder shook the house. After that, though, they fell silent, then Ben felt the urge to tell her about his decision to cross the ocean bubbling within him, and he held her a little more tightly. “Rey, I’ve been thinking,” he told her quietly. 

“About what?”

Another moment of hesitation passed, then he took in a deep breath. “Rey, I was thinking about the ships this morning… the ones heading out to explore the ocean?”

She tensed in his arms. “What about them?” she asked, her voice unbearably quiet in that way that immediately let him know something was wrong. 

“I still want to make that journey,” he said, then he closed his eyes, and let a few more seconds go by before he continued. “And I want you to join me.” 

“Ben…”

“Rey, we can go together… we can see new places and… do something with our lives instead of just staying in one place.”

“We don’t stay in one place.” Yet he could hear the denial in her voice. They’d both been all over western Europe, traveling far and wide within the limits of whatever money they could steal, but they’d never taken any real risks. They’d never gone anywhere outside of a set area. Neither of them had even been to the southern coasts of the continent. They’d both had a northwestern track that was difficult to steer off of, but now with his budding feelings for her, he was going to have to if he wanted to spend eternity with his heart intact. 

“Rey, we do,” he said, then he pulled away from her slightly, pausing when he looked into misty eyes that were begging, pleading with him to stop, but he kept on going anyway. “We’ve been in the same three countries for the past four hundred years… well, technically four countries, but… that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve only ever moved out of necessity. When was the last time you moved somewhere just to see what it was like? Just to explore?” He reached between them, and took her free hand in his. “Rey we don’t have to be confined to just changing locations whenever we get caught not aging. We can go whenever or wherever we choose. That’s the beauty of our eternal life.”

She shook her head, and a tear spilled onto her cheek, though it wasn’t obvious in her voice. “No… I… I don’t want to. I’m…”

“Why?” He asked, looking at her curiously. “What’s holding you back?”

Her breathing shuddered as it left her, then she shook her head, and buried her face back into his shoulder. “I… I don’t know. But… I didn’t leave Jakku for a century because I didn’t want to leave behind a family I…” She choked on a sob. “I didn’t want to leave behind a family I couldn’t even remember.”

“Is that what this is about? Your family?”

“Maybe? I don’t know, Ben, but… I don’t want to leave here.”

“Rey…” He squeezed her hand a little more tightly. “They’re gone.” She turned away from him then, scooting away so that he could see her entire body lying on the bed, her back to him as she began to shake with silent sobs. “Rey.”

_ “No.” _

“I’m sorry if I upset you, but that’s just the truth, you know it is,” he told her, then he swallowed back the slight anger he felt in response to her stubbornness. “They’re gone, and they’re not coming back. I… I would know…” She gave a quiet sniffle, then he sighed. “Please, join me. At least… at least consider it?” 

He knew she wouldn’t, and a battle raged within him because of it. That was what he wanted right? Some time away to sort through his feelings before he inevitably saw her again? If that was the case, then why was his heart breaking a little inside at the thought of her not coming with him?

Rey sniffled, and if he’d been able to see her face, he would’ve spotted her reaction in three stages: first the conflict, then the grief, and finally an overwhelming and sorrowful resolution as she made a decision without saying it. Out loud, though, she turned around, and faced him to let him see the tears she’d shed on her cheeks. Ben wanted nothing more than to wipe them away, and without missing a beat, he did, and her eyes closed as she let him. Her skin was soft beneath his touch, soft and damp, and as a lump built in his throat, he only just refrained from letting it loose. 

In this moment, one of them needed to try and be strong, and he decided that while she was actually doing a damn good job, he’d put up a fight against his tears for a few more minutes. “Please,” he whispered, knowing he didn’t have the strength to say anything else. 

She shuddered, but moved close to him again, leaning forward to whisper in his ear, “I’ll think about it,” then she pulled back, and laid beside him again. “For now… just… just hold me,” she murmured. “Please.”

He gave her a nod, then he shifted forward, scooping her into his arms as the tears pricked at his eyes. At last, he let them fall. She had told him maybe out loud, but Ben knew what she meant was no. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realized his time left with her was now extremely limited, and all that made him feel was a deep, intense sorrow. 

As his tears fell onto his cheeks, he wondered if she felt them as they reached her hair the way he felt hers against his chest as she sobbed quietly. Neither of them wanted to leave, and technically, neither of them had to, but Ben’s own growing feelings had driven him to make what he’d later consider the biggest mistake of his life. 

If he’d known then how little time he had before she left him again, perhaps he would’ve spent the day a bit more wisely. But they mostly spent it in the form of a routine. They ate breakfast together an hour later, electing to stay in bed for a little while longer as they processed what had happened between them that morning. Throughout the day, a cloud hung over them, and even as they made their trip to the library for the day, something felt…  _ off _ . 

They got books, spent time reading them, and even laughed together at some of the jokes they told. Still there was an air of finality to everything, like it was the last time they’d be like this. It wasn’t the last time they’d ever see each other, but it was the last time they would spend their days casually frolicking on a beach or reading library books together in his bed for centuries. They would later do other things, but they’d started something magical in Ahch To, their friendship had blossomed there. 

Their romance had begun to take root in that little beach side property. 

The day came to a close with them in his bed, the storm outside still raging viciously. It had almost caused them to cancel their library trip before they decided to go anyway, bringing home some more books with maps while she actually helped him figure out what direction he’d go in once he found a ship, musing on the various things he’d find out there. 

Now they laid there, both of them wide awake as thunder clapped in the background. Ben’s arms were wrapped around Rey as he held her beside him, his fingers stroking absentmindedly over the soft skin of her arm. Lightning briefly illuminated the scene, and Ben looked down at her to find that she was already looking at him. Even in the dark, he could still feel her eyes on his, and they stayed there like that for far too long, holding a conversation without saying a word. 

It was like she was trying to tell him what was about to happen without having to actually say it. Her own fingers were tracing circles in the ridges of his sternum, an oddly intimate gesture that caused his heartbeat to race beneath her touch. He wondered vaguely if she could feel it, or if she knew what it meant, but he didn’t spend too long on it, as he quickly lost his train of thought. 

“Rey?” he asked softly, then he waited until she hummed her acknowledgement to speak again. “I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” she replied, though what for he wasn’t sure at the time. “But Ben?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.” She splayed out her fingers over his chest, and if he had any doubts about whether or not she could feel his pounding heart before, he didn’t have them then. “The last few weeks have truly been wonderful. I… I never thought we’d end up here.”

“Neither did I, but that tends to happen when you’re an ass to someone when they try to save your life,” he replied, then they both giggled at the memory of their first meeting. It had been so long ago, nearly five centuries since they’d first met in that marketplace, and he’d learned her name when the vendor he’d stolen from swore vengeance on her for saving his life. 

As long as he lived, he was never going to forget that moment. 

“Well, it could’ve been worse.” She shrugged. “We could’ve skewered each other the day we met, too.”

Ben winced. “I’m sorry for that.”

“Me, too.”

“But… I’m glad we’ve moved past it… I’m enjoying your friendship much more than your vitriol.”

Rey giggled softly. “As am I. Let’s… let’s never turn our swords on each other again.”

“Agreed.”

“And Ben?” she waited until the next strike of lightning, making sure he was looking her dead in the eyes before she spoke next. “Maybe someday… let’s never part again?”

He blinked at her a few times, recalling the first few times they’d encountered one another when she’d wanted nothing to do with him and his offer to spend their unfortunate eternity together. “Are you sure?” he asked, feeling his most traitorous organ soaring to life in his chest. “I remember what you said a few centuries ago, Rey.”

“We’ve both changed since then, haven’t we?”

“Yeah,” he breathed, then he yawned involuntarily. “I guess we have.”

Rey paused for a second, sounding like she wanted to say more, but then deciding against it as she curled up against him. “You sound tired.”

“I’m not tired,” he protested, but a second yawn didn’t help his case. 

She gave him a soft little snort, then she patted his chest. “We should get some sleep. I don’t want the storm to keep us up all night,” she told him, then she tucked her head on his shoulder, using him as a pillow. 

“That sounds reasonable,” Ben joked, then he again resisted the urge to press a kiss to the crown of her head as he sighed. “Goodnight, Rey.”

There was a slight tremor to her voice as she answered him, but he wouldn’t think anything of it until later. “Goodnight, Ben,” she whispered, then she relaxed against him, and he closed his eyes, the both of them falling into one last night of blissful, nightmare free sleep. 

*

Ben woke up alone. Instantly he knew Rey was gone from how cold the bed was suddenly despite it being midsummer. It was still only mid-July, and Autumn’s cold winds were weeks away from blowing in from the seaside. Every other morning he’d woken up knowing she was beside him, but this morning, she was unmistakably gone. 

He didn’t open his eyes at first, not wanting to believe it. Sure, there was a chance she was just downstairs reading one of the books they’d stolen from the library, but… something in his gut told him that wasn’t the case. She was actually gone, and his heart plummeted within his chest knowing exactly why. 

Ben didn’t even know when he’d leave yet, but Rey clearly hadn’t wanted to see him go, and decided to cut the thread between them herself. Though a lump formed in his throat, he understood her motivations perfectly. Had the roles been reversed, there was every chance he would’ve done the exact same thing. 

Slowly, hesitantly, he let himself open his eyes to see his own arm outstretched over rumpled and clearly slept in sheets, a tear slowly forming in his eyes as he realized that she really was gone, and it wasn’t just a terrible hunch. Her name tumbled from his lips as he scanned the room for signs that she’d even been there at all other than his sheets, but found only a piece of parchment rolled up on her nightstand. 

Ben scooted over to the other side of the bed, which felt cold from how long she’d been absent from it beneath his touch, and picked up the parchment. With trembling fingers, he unrolled it, seeing her slightly messy cursive looping in a manner not at all unlike his — he’d been the one to teach her, after all during one of their many library sessions — reading off the goodbye written in the Portuguese language she hadn’t had the courage to say. 

_ “Ben, _

_ By the time you read this… I’ll be sailing on the Atlantic somewhere, and you’ll be free to go off and see what’s on the shore beyond the horizon. I’m sorry to leave you like this, but I think we both know it’s for the best, seeing as we both clearly want different things, and I can’t stand watching you drift off into the sunset.  _

_ I booked passage on a ship to the Southern coast of France, whose captain I borrowed this parchment from. I figured I at least owed you an explanation for my absence. Anyway, after my arrival on the French coast, I’m not sure where I’ll be, but I’ve heard stories about Italy. Maybe I’ll be there. _

_ If you come back from the other side, tell me what you found there someday. I’d love to hear it. Just know that I’ll think of you often. And I meant what I said, one day, though I don’t know when that day will be, I want to enjoy your companionship properly, but your desire to leave and my desire to stay indicated to me that we aren’t ready for our paths to intersect just yet. We may not be ready for centuries yet, but I’ll wait. I’ve only got eternity.  _

_ Most importantly, as I said last night, the past few weeks have been the best of my life, and I can’t say I regret a moment of it. Thank you for filling my mind with better memories. Thank you for giving me something to keep the nightmares at bay…” _

There was something crossed out there, but he couldn’t even begin to make an attempt to figure out what it was. This was in part because she’d scratched it out so illegibly that even the best of eyes couldn’t see it, and in other part because his eyes were so misted over by his own tears as he started to realize what a mistake he made. 

It wasn’t worth it, having driven her away. It would never be worth it. Sure he now had the chance to get over the romantic feelings he had for her, but he realized all too late that it was far from worth it. He would have rather risked losing her friendship than losing her entirely over his feelings, and he hated more than anything that it took her disappearing in the night for him to figure that out. 

Ben buried his head in his hands, letting loose a few silent sobs as tears poured over his cheeks, thoughts of the next time they’d see each other drifting through his mind as he continued to read the final paragraphs of her letter. 

_ “Just thank you for all of it. I leave you with my gratitude and my love in the way that only a true and old friend can love. I hope we meet again somed _ — _ I  _ know  _ we’ll meet again someday. Figuring out when and where that is, that’s just part of the adventure for us, another mystery to the story we’re writing.  _

_ I leave you with this. Take care of yourself, old friend. When you find yourself in misery and loneliness, look up at the evening sky, with any luck, I’ll be staring at the same stars. Or maybe look at the moon, for all you know, I could be staring at it, too, and maybe then we won’t be quite so alone. _

_ And remember, when you’re ready, come and find me. _

_ Love, _

_ Rey.” _

Folding the parchment back up into his hands, Ben held it close to his chest, collapsing against his mattress as tears streamed down his face. He didn’t notice or care about them, though, all he was able to do was crawl back into the bed, and silently mourn the loss of the fun summer days he’d given up far too early. 

He wasn’t completely hopeless, though, one day, he’d see her again, and next time, he wouldn’t leave her with a broken heart. No, next time he’d meet her as friends, and his romantic attachments to her would be gone, forgotten like so many memories of his infinitely long past. He’d eventually journey across the sea, and he’d tell her everything as she’d made him promise he would. 

They would see each other again — their separation wouldn’t be forever. In fact, this time… their separation wouldn’t even last half a century. 


	11. Venice, 1515 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, I had three other WIPS but I wrapped two of them so HOPEFULLY THIS WILL PICK UP SOON.

Not even thirty years later, Rey was seated in front of a mirror preparing herself for her first night out in more than a year. Since she’d left Ben, life had become dull, and there wasn’t a day that went by where she didn’t regret the decision. She could only hope he wasn’t angry with her, that he could eventually learn to forgive her for leaving him in the middle of the night with only a letter for a goodbye.

Every day she feared he hadn’t even seen it. What if he thought she’d just casually abandoned him? What if he somehow missed the letter she’d left and went off to the new world thinking she didn’t care? It was the opposite case. She cared far too much about Ben Solo.

She’d left him instructions on where to find her, but as she looked out her window into the city of Venice, Rey wondered if he’d even received them in the first place.

Forcing herself to focus on something other than her fellow immortal, Rey reached for the rouge on her vanity, staring into her reflection’s sad, ancient eyes as she began to blot it onto her cheeks. Before her move to Venice, she’d never worn makeup, but with the culture there, it was practically a must. Especially on nights like this one, where the town’s richest were gathering at what for all she knew was an actual palace given the immense size of the building hosting the party.

Well, to be precise, they were hosting a masquerade, and Rey had been talked into going thanks to a friend she’d made upon her arrival. Amilyn Holdo was one of the wealthiest women around, holding plenty of status and respect despite having never married. Society would have deemed most women like her old maids or spinsters, but not Amilyn, she had somehow managed to become the exception, and maybe that was how they wound up becoming such good friends the moment they’d stepped off their ship.

In southern France, Rey had taken a page out of Ben’s book from their time in Portugal, and opted for a more opulent lifestyle. She’d traded her traditional, simple dresses and the occasional menswear for fabrics of luxury… and she may have stolen the identity of a recently dead woman to do it, but desperate times called for desperate measures. It was just a matter of luck and carefully crafted experience doing that sort of thing that ensured she was successful.

That had been a little over a year ago, and while the same exact masquerade had been hosted the previous year, Rey had been feeling a little too sad to attend. Amilyn had left her alone then, but once the two women knew each other a little better, she’d been able to successfully convince her to attend that year.

And thus began the series of events that led to Rey in a red dress with a corset that was a bit tight and uncomfortable as she blended the red rouge into her cheeks, and dabbed a little on her lips. The mask she had painted the day before would cover up half her face anyway, but she still moved through the motions of getting ready as if she weren’t even in control of her body. It had become routine at this point, and even the fancy way she’d done her hair she couldn’t remember doing. It was pulled back to allow for full viewing of whichever mask she decided to wear, and even braided in places to add little intricate details. Normally society frowned upon deviations from the norm, but carnivals like this were places to step outside those boundaries just a little.

After all, no one could tell who was who. Everyone, no matter who they were, would be in disguise.

Once she finished applying the touches of red pigment to her lips, Rey set down her tools, and assessed her appearance. Aside from the sorrowful eyes, she looked every piece the picture of royalty, and with her last shreds of vanity, she mustered the thought that it must’ve been the finest she’d ever looked. It was too bad that she was going to be concealing her identity with a mask then, for the entire world deserved to see her like this at least once.

 _Even if everyone who saw it would die before it could be truly remembered._

She tried to ignore the passing fantasy she had about Ben seeing her like this, but forgetting him never seemed to get easier. If he wasn’t occupying her immediate thoughts he was haunting the background of her mind, and she could hear his laugh and see his smile in the Ahch To sunshine as they rolled in the waves of the beach easily. They’d been so carefree together by the time they parted, and Rey wondered if they’d ever be able to find that rhythm with each other again.

Standing up from her vanity mirror, Rey pushed those thoughts from her mind as she made her way over to an ornate, gold painted nightstand that held a lantern and her mask. Red hues that matched her dress stood out against silver and golden streaks of paint along the carefully carved edges that drifted down to cover her cheeks almost like a butterfly’s wings. At least, it would have that effect once she put it on.

Rey reached down to grab her mask, which despite its intricacies was still simple in comparison to the one she’d seen Amilyn commission off of another artist, or the ones she’d seen from their neighbors. Every other man and woman in Venice went for the most elaborate and outrageous designs they could conceive thought of, and the gowns and jackets were just as extravagant to match. It was a display of wealth in a most grandeur fashion, and the immortal woman thought it was one of the most ridiculous things she’d ever seen.

Still participating in the festivities… for once she didn’t dread the thought of partaking in her new home’s culture, or mingling with the people. There was a strange sense of anticipation in the air; a sort of excitement she tended to feel right before something good happened, and that made her feel ecstatic. It had been far too long since she’d seen a miracle.

Without giving it another thought she took the mask’s ribbons, and put it on, tying them beneath her intricate hairstyle before she spun, and looked at her reflection in her vanity mirror. _Damn_ she looked beautiful, and even she could admit that. Her friend had been right — red truly was her color. She may not have had a taste for the opulent before, but now… with the golden bodice and scarlet fabric shimmering around her silhouette Rey thought she just might have changed her mind.

Before she got a chance to examine herself too thoroughly, a knock sounded at her front door, and she heard Amilyn’s low voice calling for her from the other side. The corners of her mouth tilted into a grin, then she blew out the candles lighting her room, and made a dash out of her house, moving as quickly as her long, thick skirts would allow her into the cool night air.

The party was full swing when they arrived, people dancing and talking all around them as music played from the far end of the room. Rey almost stumbled out into the floor, a little dizzy from the wine Amilyn had brought on the way over, but managed to make it through without making too big a fool out of herself. “Everyone’s already partnered,” she mused, not that she’d particularly hoped to dance with any of the men -- or women, if the courtesans were so bold -- at the party, but she certainly was reminded again that she was alone every time such an occasion arose.

“Ah, you’re young, you’ll find someone,” Amilyn said flippantly, and Rey nearly spat out the wine she’d just taken a sip of at how ironic that statement was. She was unquestionably the only one there, unless Ben had somehow managed to show his face at that party, and even then it was debatable. It would forever be impossible to tell what year he was born in, only that he was physically older than she by a good few years, if memory served. “And even if you don’t… Being alone has worked wonders for me so far. Just follow my lead, and do what I do, and no one will meddle in your business.”

Rey laughed as she clinked her goblet against her friend’s, then the two women walked around the side lines, taking in the party as the dancers picked up their pace in time with the music. “I don’t particularly wish for one, no… except…”

“The sailor from the New World?” Amilyn asked, quirking a knowing eyebrow as she adjusted a piece of the lavender beading of her dress. At Rey’s shocked expression from this response, she simply laughed. “It’s obvious from the way you talk about him. There’s something between the two of you, isn’t there?”

“Amilyn!” Rey cried in mock scandal, then she gave her friend a smile. “Your head’s filled with too many stories. There’s nothing between Ben and I. If there were, he wouldn’t have been tempted by the New World. He would’ve stayed.”

“I think that’s precisely the reason he ran,” she pointed out, her eyes serious despite the mask that covered most of her face, making it seem as if there were deep purple tears running down from her eyes all the way to her jaw line. “He was afraid of what it all would mean.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Rey knew that Amilyn was right, but the forefront of her brain wasn’t ready to process that yet, so she ignored it, and laughed off the statement. “Absolutely mad,” she murmured, then finished her drink immediately, setting down the goblet on a nearby table that probably cost more than anything she’d ever purchased in her entire life.

Feeling a need to prove her friend wrong about what she felt for Ben, Rey began to peruse the edges of the dance floor for signs of a perfect partner to sweep her across it. Every man she passed though never quite managed to strike her eye, even with the most outrageous of costumes. No, not one of them caught her eye, but as a hand suddenly tapped at her wrist, it seemed she had caught the eye of someone else.

Rey turned around to see a man clad in an elegant — but far simpler in design than those around him — costume and a mask not unlike her own, except his was dark like the night sky with only silver to dot it like the stars. Instantly she found him more captivating than any other she’d encountered in the room thus far, and as she looked into his eyes, it wasn’t hard to wonder why. He looked almost exactly like Ben. Well — he had a lot about him that reminded her of her best and only friend, but he certainly couldn’t have been him, could he? They’d run into one another under weirder circumstances.

Before she could work up the courage to ask him who he was, the masked figure held out a hand, and cleared his throat, speaking in a deep, but slightly accented voice that sent shivers down her spine. “Would you care to join me for a dance?”

It took several seconds too long for Rey to realize he was actually speaking to her — she’d been busy watching her stranger’s sinfully full lips move beneath the mask as he spoke, too busy trying to see if the dark hair he’d half pulled back was wavy despite his mask’s attempts to keep it pinned down. Once she did come back to reality, though, she gave him a nod, and put her hand in his. “Of course, sir,” she told him, and if this man was Ben she would wind up feeling obscenely ridiculous later for having called him sir, but as far as she knew, he was just another rich man. He was harmless, and she wanted him to stay that way.

Not even thirty years had passed since they’d last seen each other, and with long lifespans like theirs they tended to need at least half a century to recover from emotional traumas. Ben’s electing to travel across the coasts despite her begging him not to was still fresh in her memory, and while she missed him, Rey wasn’t sure how well she’d handle confronting him at this moment. If the man now guiding her out onto the bustling dance floor was him, she wasn’t going to acknowledge it unless he acknowledged her.

The man swept her out onto the dance floor, one hand in hers and another at her back, pulling her close as she settled her free hand on his shoulder, then the two were gallivanting across the floor like every other pairing there. Rey laughed as her partner broke that hold to spin her around before regaining it, then she shook her head at him as they danced in time with the fast paced beat the band had set. “You seem familiar with this,” she told her partner, and at the sound of her voice, she heard him shiver. This reaction didn’t surprise her too much, since many men and women before him had found her deep voice oddly seductive — and had told her such, which fueled a dying sense of vanity each time — but there was something like recognition in his eyes, as if she’d reminded him of a long forgotten memory.

It was then that the man who may or may not have been Ben stuttered over his response, “I-I certainly hope so. I was taught by some rather finely skilled dancers,” he told her, then he lowered his voice. “Truly skilled in their craft.”

She snorted quietly. “Is that how you seduce women? By telling them of your previous conquests?”

“You think my teachers were conquests?” He asked, then he spun her out again, and leaned down close to her ear when she came back to him. “You think I learned to dance in more ways than one?”

“I think you’re well versed in the art of dancing, but all men are,” she replied, then she changed her words. “At least, they think so.”

“And what about you?” he asked, pulling himself away to a more manageable distance. “You seem to be confident on your feet yourself.”

“That’s a bit rude, isn’t it? Asking a lady about her experience? I ought to make an outcry over your indecency.”

“But you won’t,” he replied, and she immediately quirked an eyebrow at him, but of course thanks to the mask, he couldn’t see it.

Rey instead managed a scoff, and as she looked up into her strangers eyes again, she caught flecks of gold in their deep brown. In all her years and all the people she’d met, only one man had eyes like that, and she was almost certain he was the very same one that now stood in front of her. A choice stood in the small space between them; she could either call him out on his identity, or she could say nothing and they could keep dancing. It was the same choice she’d made when they’d first come out onto the floor, only now she was absolutely certain without a shadow of a doubt that this was Ben. “No,” she said calmly, shaking her head as she looked into those eyes that were too old for his young frame. “I won’t.”

“Then let’s keep going,” he said, launching them into the next phase of their dance as he lifted her by the waist, and spun them both around, then they whirled about the floor as the band played on, both quite possibly aware of the other’s identity but both eager to play the game of pretend.

Rey held his gaze, watching his eyes through the holes in his black mask as they danced, knowing with almost certainty that they belonged to Ben. She nearly froze in her steps, her throat becoming dry as she became aware of the way they were holding each other in their dance. It was perhaps slightly closer than was considered appropriate, but up until she’d stopped denying his identity, it hadn’t bothered her.

Now that she knew it was Ben… Rey’s brain went into overdrive.

“Are you alright?” he asked, and _shit_ , he really was Ben. His accent had gained a new, slightly foreign lilt to it that had prevented her from becoming certain of it at first, and she'd never heard him speak Venetian. It shouldn’t have surprised her that he’d learnt it, Ben had been sticking his head in books about a great many things the last time she’d seen him. He had a passion for learning she hadn’t quite seen in any other human, and like she always did, probably learned how to speak in the dialect of each nation he found himself in.

Shaking herself from her thoughts, Rey nodded, then he spun her around again, causing her to laugh as she came back into his arms. “Well, I’ll become dizzy soon instead of you keep doing that!”

The stranger she thought was Ben simply gave her another deep laugh, the sound unaffected by wherever he’d traveled to as he paused them in their dance. For a moment, every other couple whizzed past them in a blur, their masked faces becoming faint traces of nothing in the background as she found herself gazing upon those eyes again. His lips parted, then shut, as if he was unsure what to say. She couldn’t blame him though, she was currently in the same boat.

What could she possibly say to him after how they’d last parted? She’d left him a note, but still abandoned him seaside, and if she closed her eyes, she could still feel the tears streaming down her face as the boat pulled out to sea, and Ben’s house slowly began to grow small with distance. It had hurt her badly to leave, and she had no doubt he’d felt equal amounts of pain to realize the only trace left of her had been in the form of a letter. Rey had no idea how Ben felt about her now, and that was completely terrifying. What if she’d ruined the friendship between them? What if he hated her now as she once hated him?

“Care to join me for a stroll outside, then?” Ben asked, stepping away from her for a moment to offer her his hand again. “It might help to get away for a moment.”

 _If he only knew nothing could ever truly ail her._ He’d find out soon enough, though. Perhaps away from the glittering candles and lanterns, from the chandeliers that lit the room, Ben would see her for who she was again beneath the glamor that came with a party like that one. Instead of voicing this out loud, though, Rey merely gave him a nod, and took his hand, allowing him to guide her out onto the street bordering the canal running through the city’s beating heart.

The evening air was cool considering it was nearly May, and Rey shivered initially against it as the lights of the party began to fade away, and the masked duo made their way through those belonging to the lamps lining the street. “Cold?” her companion asked, then she shook her head as they came to a stop by the water’s edge, listening to the sound of the canal lapping casually at the boat tied to the nearest dock. “It wouldn’t hurt you, though. Would it?”

Shivers ran up and down her spine. “How would you know?” she asked, knowing full well the contents of his answer, but daring to play the little game they’d both already lost a little longer.

Ben scoffed his answer. “If you think after all this time, I wouldn’t know those eyes the second I saw them, you’re sorely mistaken,” he replied, then she watched as he reached up, and removed his mask, revealing his face to truly be that of the man who had been haunting and following her for centuries. He held it firmly in both his hands, then once he was absolutely certain of her identity, he swallowed, and gave her a faint smile. “Hello, Rey.”

She shuddered at the sound of her name from his lips, then with trembling fingers, she removed her own mask, holding it delicately as she looked him in the eyes. Oh, _hell_ , had he always been gorgeous? Or was it just that night? Was it the way the moonlight caught in his dark, wavy hair, or how it highlighted the different colors in his deep brown irises? Or was it simply something she’d just never noticed before and suddenly, after time apart… she was suddenly seeing him for the first time? “Hello, Ben.”

“It’s… it’s been a long time…” he said, clearly not knowing what to say as he stepped back, and looked her up and down. “You look beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Thank you.” She could feel her cheeks flushing as she fidgeted with the detailing on her mask. “You look rather dashing yourself if you… if you don’t mind _me_ saying.”

They both laughed awkwardly, then Ben shook his head. “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon, it’s usually closer to a century. When you left…”

“Ben…”

He put up a hand, then she caught the mist in his eyes, and she knew instantly just how much she’d hurt him when she’d left in the middle of the night. Without him having to say a word, she could see the extent of the devastation her leaving had wrought. It was in the quiver of his lip and the tears in his eyes as he looked at her, and how he leaned toward her as if he were afraid she would flee him again at any second. “I… Why, Rey?”

“I was scared.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said, then she moved to turn away, but he grasped her wrist in his large hand before she could, holding her in place but not forcing her any closer to him.

“Why?”

“Ben, please, I’m… I’m sorry about how I left, it’s haunted me every day since,” she told him, then Ben shook his head, and stepped toward her, letting go of her wrist as he moved.

“In the middle of the night? You were so afraid to tell me you didn’t want to come that you left in the middle of the damn night?” he asked, the hurt obvious in his eyes. “Rey… I know what we had was still new, but… I thought we were better than that. I thought I meant more to you than leaving me a note goodbye and abandoning me.”

Her own lip had started to quiver at this, and she sniffled as she felt the tears spring to her eyes as well. “We were,” she replied, wincing at the way her voice cracked as she looked at him, watching the tears spilling out onto his cheeks, and wanting nothing more than to wipe them away, but finding herself held back again by fear. “You’re the only friend I truly have, and… And you were going to leave, and I didn’t have the strength to watch you go, so I left you before you could leave me.”

“I wasn’t going to leave you in the middle of the night!”

“But you _were going to leave, Ben!”_ she shouted, then she lowered her voice, fearing the general public would hear their argument. “You were… you were going to leave, and I didn’t know what to do. I panicked, and I rationalized with myself that you’d find me again. We’ll live long enough, and you’ll find me again, and you did. You’re standing right in front of me!”

Ben shook his head. “I wouldn’t have left for another month,” he told her, then he scoffed. “And I didn’t leave for another few years, because I was hoping… I don’t know… I thought for some reason you’d come back, but you didn’t. So I finally left.”

Sniffling loudly, she dabbed at a tear before it could smudge her rouge. “And did you see it? The new world?” she asked, genuinely curious despite the heartbreak she felt surging through her upon seeing him again.

“I did,” he replied, then he shifted the mask in his hands. “And it was beautiful… New land… different trees, different weather… But it… it wasn’t worth it. The men I traveled with weren’t honorable… Rey, there were people already living there. I think instead of finding an adventure…” His whole body shuddered, then he sighed. “It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t worth driving you away for.”

“You make it sound like you were trying to,” she mused, and in that moment, she looked away to the canal, missing the look in his eyes that confirmed that was exactly what he’d done before she was making eye contact with him again. “But… I suppose I did worse, in the end. I… I should have just told you no, and I’m sorry I didn’t, I’m always going to be sorry.”

This time, Ben stepped forward, and took her hand in his. “You don’t have to be.” Taking a deep breath, he squeezed her hand. “I forgive you.”

“I forgive you, too,” she told him, then she reached up with her free hand, and let herself wipe away the tear that had fallen down onto his cheek.

He shivered beneath her touch, but then he did the same, both their hands lingering on each other’s cheeks as they stared at each other in the aftermath of their admissions. “What were you doing at a masquerade like this? You’ve never struck me as being fond of decadence.”

She scoffed. “I could ask you the same thing,” she shot back. “This party is leagues beyond both of us, so how come we’re here?”

“An excellent question.”

“For me, I’ve been dragged my a friend I made. I was half-planning to spend the whole thing in the background until you asked me to dance.”

They both laughed at this, then Ben held out his arm to her, and the two resumed their stroll by the canal’s side. “I was just making a stop for the night,” he admitted, then he chuckled. “We leave tomorrow morning for the Ottoman Empire, Athens bound across the Mediterranean, but tonight we feast in Venice.”

“You’re leaving so soon?”

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” he said, though the way he said it ensured she knew; finding her had changed nothing about the course he was on.

“I don’t suppose I could ask you to stay, then?” She asked, despite that look in his eyes that made his answer clear before she even asked the question.

Ben placed a hand over the one holding his arm. “It’s too soon, Rey.”

“I understand.”

“Maybe the next time we see each other, I’ll be ready, but for now…” he squeezed her hand. “I need a little more time to think.”

She nodded, then the two of them strolled down the street for a moment in silence, ignoring the occasional stares they got from passers by. As they walked, though, a thought blossomed in her head, and she smiled. “You said you had tonight? You’re not going anywhere until dawn?”

Instantly, the smile was there on Ben’s face, though present only in the twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I won’t leave until tomorrow morning, yes.”

“Then what do you say we skip the rest of the party and I can show you where I’m living these days? I think you’ll find it rather impressive,” she said, then when he quirked an amused eyebrow, she found herself unable to contain the violent giggles that overtook her. “I learned from you.”

“Oh? Well, let’s see it, then.”

Another half an hour later, she had Ben within the confines of her home once more. Something about seeing him in her well-lit, well-kept home struck her as _right_ , but she couldn’t quite place it. The same feeling struck her every time he was in a space she possessed, and she tried to shake it, but always seemed to fail. Still, she managed to make it through giving him the grand tour of her new home.

“I moved in last year, took it over when the owner conveniently died shortly before my arrival,” she told him, lifting her skirts as she climbed a small set of stairs leading to a balcony. “And I made a friend who helped me settle in. She doesn’t know about the eternal life part, but she doesn’t question anything either. That’s the thing about Amilyn, she knows what is and isn’t her business.”

“You sound like you’re doing well for yourself,” Ben replied, then he followed her out onto the balcony, and the two of them looked out over the canal, falling into another lapse of silence as they took it in.

The evening was beautiful. A nearly full moon shone down on them from impossibly high in the sky, and reflected silver light from the water as gondolas lazily made their way through the flowing water, creating tiny wakes as they journeyed on into the night. And on top of it all, there was Ben, standing beside her clad in his usual black, though gold accented his clothing, adding just enough of a pop that he blended in with the nobles. He shouldn’t have made an already beautiful night lovely, but something about his presence there did exactly that.

Rey shivered at the thought of what that might have meant.

“So this is where you’re living nowadays?” Ben asked curiously, running a hand over the iron rail preventing him from falling down onto the street.

“It’s where I’ll be for the next few years, if I can help it,” she replied, leaning against the rail beside him. “I like it here, it’s beautiful.”

Ben cleared his throat. “It is.” then she met his gaze, and felt her cheeks flush upon seeing the pink coloring his own.

“It’s also getting late,” she told him, adjusting the sleeves of her ball gown as she began to turn away from the hypnotic, Venetian night. “We should turn in… if… if you wouldn’t mind joining me, that is. I haven’t had a restful night’s sleep since I left.”

He shook his head. “Neither have I.” Ben shifted forward, and reached a hand out for hers again. “And I would be honored to join you anywhere.”

Shivers ran through her anew that she hoped desperately he didn’t see, and wondered if that was at all an appropriate reaction to her best and only true friend accepting her invitation. Deep down, she knew it wasn’t, but out loud she didn’t acknowledge that fear, and instead took his hand in hers, and led him back inside toward her bedroom.

Ben looked mesmerized by the massive mattress at the center of her room, which was much bigger than the one they’d shared previously in his home on the Portuguese coast, running a hand along the sheets before he flopped himself down onto it with a dopey grin on his face. “I have to say, I could get used to this,” he admitted.

“Then stay,” she whispered, but he didn’t hear her as he continued laughing gleefully, staring up at the ceiling with sheer delight in his eyes. Rey watched him for a moment, then she walked over, and began to blow out all the candles in the room. The whole time, she could feel him watching her, his laughter calming down just seconds later into slow and steady breathing, but he wasn’t asleep. No, he was just very, very focused to the point where she could almost hear him thinking.

“I understand why you did it,” he told her as she approached the last candle. “Why you left? I’m sorry I got angry with you earlier.”

“Ben, we’ve already forgiven each other for Portugal—“

“I haven’t forgiven myself,” he interrupted, then she looked over at him, bent halfway over the final candle, and she straightened up to see Ben’s eyes looking forlorn again. “If I hadn’t said anything about wanting to travel, you would’ve stayed. We could’ve been happy for a little longer.”

“Ben, you had no way of knowing what would happen.” She blew out the last candle, and swallowed nervously. “We can talk about this later, I’m taking this stupid dress off.”

“Do you need help?” he asked, then they both froze, realizing the implications of that question. “I just mean… that dress looks complicated.”

“It is, but if I got myself into it, I can get myself out of it.”

Ben shrugged, then slumped back against her mattress again. “Suit yourself,” he replied, then he snickered to himself as he began to take off his uncomfortable looking jacket and boots. “Or in this case, _unsuit_ yourself.”

Rey scoffed at him, then picked up the nearest pillow, and threw it directly into his face in retaliation. “I will throw you out onto the streets and let you fend for yourself if you say that again,” she warned him, then as Ben cackled like a hyena, she moved about dressing for the night under the shroud of darkness. Her red gown was discarded casually on the floor, and she only just withheld a moan as her corset soon followed — an undergarment she prayed wouldn’t become too popular in fashion in the upcoming years, but had a bad feeling that it would catch on entirely too well — leaving her only in her underwear for a moment before she reached into her wardrobe, and pulled out a white nightgown she’d been gifted by Amilyn. Praying Ben was unable to see in the dark, she threw it over her head, and crawled into the bed beside him, allowing him to scoop her up into his arms like they were still in Portugal.

For a moment, it was like they’d never left Ahch To. It was like they were still frolicking on beaches everyday, and exploring new worlds through the library as if they’d never left, as if they’d never broken each other’s hearts. “God, I missed you,” Ben murmured, so quietly she almost didn’t hear it, but she did, and it sent a new wave of heartbreak running through her as she realized he’d just leave her again in the morning.

God, she’d missed him, too.

Wrapping an arm around his waist, Rey took in a deep breath against his chest, taking him in and committing him to memory in every way she possibly could before she had to lose him again for an indeterminate amount of time. Still, she knew where he was going this time. He was setting sails for Athens, she’d find him easily if she wanted to, and eventually, she had every intent of coming after him. All she had to do was give him a little more space first, and she could do that.

There was one perk to her eternal life, and that was an unmatched ability to wait. If Ben needed a century away from her, she could give him that century. If he needed a millenia, she could give him that, too. He never would need that, but she’d do it if she needed to. As the time passed, and his fingers gripped her waist and threaded through her hair, she slowly began to realize there was no shortage of things she would do for him, and as Ben realized in Portugal, so too did Rey realize thirty years later that she was starting to fall for her best friend.

It was terrifying, shocking, and a little magical, but it was the fact. Something had begun in Rey’s cold, long thought dead heart that warmed it toward him, that made it beat like it was supposed to whenever he was around, and that was the most terrifying demon she’d ever faced somehow. “Ben?”

“Hmm?”

“Thanks for coming with me tonight,” she told him, fisting her hand in the fabric of his shirt. “Having you back…”

“I needed you, too, Rey,” he whispered, then she closed her eyes, allowing herself to slowly find the blissful peace that came with sleep. “And I’ll find you again, I promise.”

Rey yawned. “You always do,” she reminded him, then she felt Ben press a kiss to the top of her head, and hold onto her a little more tightly.

For the past thirty years, she’d struggled to fall asleep at night. Well, she hadn’t struggled too hard, but staying asleep with all the nightmares and the ceaseless, ceaseless void of silence had made it difficult. But with Ben beside her, with someone next to her she knew would never just slip away forever, she felt safer. With his warmth beside her, Rey was able to fall effortlessly into a nightmare free sleep, and the last thing she heard before she lost consciousness was the sound of her friend’s faint snores as he too succumbed to the throes of sleep.


	12. Venice, 1515 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO! This is a shorter one than the last but considering it wasn’t supposed to happen at all, I’m okay with it. This note’s really just a reminder that there’s a new tag on this thing and we’re earning our ratings.

Ben woke up the next morning to find Rey snoring softly in his arms, holding him tightly as she slept on through the rising of the sun. A sense of peace surrounded him, even as he remembered that in just a few short hours, he’d be boarding a ship bound for Athens, and they’d be apart once again. 

A tiny voice in the back of his head nagged at him that he could always stay in Venice, could always stick around and live with her for a while like he’d once proposed they do on a hillside in an English village. He ignored that voice, the stubborn part of him that was still reeling from the abandonment in Portugal thirty years prior winning out as he made the firm decision to meet with his crew later, and continue onward in his mission to Greece. 

All the same, he couldn’t help himself as he recalled all the reasons why he’d pushed Rey away in the first place, those feelings he had blossoming for her coming right back up to the surface now that she was in his arms wearing a nightgown and sleeping soundly. She really was absolutely beautiful, her brunette hair tinged auburn in the light of the sunrise, eyelids fluttering softly with dreams that he could only hope were pleasant, and her nightgown draping over her curves delicately before disappearing beneath the sheets covering both of their bodies. 

He smiled as her hand grasped at his shirt in her sleep, then he tightened the grip his arms had around her, allowing himself this one moment of weakness as he leaned forward, and pressed a lingering kiss to her forehead. Unlike what had happened twenty eight years ago, he didn’t flinch or pull back, he simply stayed there until he decided his lips had been touching her long enough, then he finally moved away. 

The potential of what was between them was still in those early stages, but already he was beginning to wonder what would happen if she was awake when he kissed her neck or forehead. Or if… or if one day he’d be allowed to kiss her other places — and oh, if that thought didn’t send his mind  _ reeling  _ — if he’d know what it was like to capture her lips between his. 

He’d kissed and been kissed before — he’d probably at one point done that or had half the country in his bed — but something about the prospect of locking lips with Rey sent his heart into overdrive. His eyes drifted down to her mouth, still tinged red from the makeup she’d worn the night before, and without thinking, he reached up, and ghosted his thumb over the skin of her lower lip, feeling the warm air of her breath washing over his fingers until he removed his hand, and let it rest at his side. 

Ben was truly done for now, wasn’t he? He didn’t know what was beginning between them, or maybe he did and he was still clinging to the last vestiges of his denial, but he knew something had indeed started, and its time was coming. 

_ Just not yet.  _

Finally, Rey began to stir in his arms, groaning softly as she blinked against the light, then buried her face in his shoulder. He laughed at her reaction, then he began to gently rub her shoulder in greeting. “I see you’ve developed a distaste for mornings.”

She grunted into the fabric of his shirt. “Not mornings, just the sun,” she replied, then she tilted her head up at him, allowing him a glimpse into those stunning hazel eyes. “I didn’t realize when I picked this house to take over that the window of the master bedroom faced east.”

“A naïve mistake,” he assured her, then she groaned as she swatted at his chest. 

“Don’t be rude, I invited you in here, and I will more than willingly kick you out if you decide to start belittling me,” she warned him, though he could tell she was being sarcastic, it was obvious in the smile parting her lips. 

“Oh really?” he asked, the smirk of mischief already forming on his face. 

She nodded. “Mhm, out on the streets before you can say a word.”

Ben thought for a moment on his response, then he leaned forward, closing the space between them until they were a scant few inches apart, and he whispered, “A word.” Then he watched Rey’s face fill with mock rage.

“I’ll kill you,” she promised him, then she shoved at his shoulder, engaging him in a playful battle so many leagues away from the fights they’d actually engaged in he couldn’t fathom that they’d ever happened. 

Ben smirked at her before shoving back, causing her to laugh as she grasped his arms, pressing back against him as he fought with her, not at all surprised by the immense strength she wielded against him, pressing him back until he nearly fell off the bed. Ben gripped her wrists, attempting to hold her back, but he still continued his retreat toward the edge of the bed as Rey pressed onward. Fearing gravity, he pushed against her, forcing them both to roll over as she relented her own force, and while she rolled on her back, he fell on top of her, landing between her legs while his arms pinned hers at either side of her head. 

For a moment, time stood still, and Ben watched Rey’s pupils dilate somewhat as she watched him, and arousal shot through his body — particularly the erection he’d woken up with that morning but refused to acknowledge up until that point — as he caught sight of her wrists pinned beneath his hands. It was only made worse as his eyes drifted down to her lips again, watching her jaw go slack as she took in a deep breath, then her whole body shuddered beneath his as she exhaled, and he found himself thinking again about the thoughts he’d had of kissing her. 

If there was ever a time for him to kiss her it would’ve been right then, but something in the back of his head told him to wait. He couldn’t do this now, it wasn’t their time.  _ Not yet _ , said the voice, and he listened to it, finally coming back to reality as he attempted to roll off of her, but as he moved his right hand off her wrist, he lost his balance, and only collapsed on top of her so their bodies were completely flush against one another. 

Both of them froze at this new position, Rey’s eyes going wide as she stared up at him. He held his breath, unsure of how she’d react until laughter escaped her lips. “Did you forget to detach a dagger from your belt or are you just happy to see me?” she teased, and his cheeks went crimson as he realized she’d noticed his erection. 

“God, I’m…” he crawled off of her hurriedly, running a hand through his hair as he sat back on his knees in front of her, and she sat up on the bed to match. “I’m so sorry, I…”

“Ben, just because we can’t die doesn’t mean everything else stops,” she told him, then she shrugged. “It’s just biology, and you’re a man…” Her breath hitched as she said this, then she straightened up. “I know what can happen to you in the mornings is what I’m saying.”

He shook his head. “No… it’s… you’re my friend, and… I shouldn’t be like this around  _ you, _ ” he breathed. 

Rey reached forward, and put a hand on his arm. “Ben, I understand,” she told him, then she removed it, and he mourned the loss of her touch. “I’ll go prepare breakfast if you want to take care of it.” 

His eyes went wide as she slid off of the bed, then she stood up, and walked over to her vanity where a dressing gown of sorts — made from one of the finest silks he’d ever seen — hung over a fancy looking stool. “Rey, I’ll be fine, you don’t have to—“

She laughed as she threw on the dressing gown over her night clothes. “No, it’s fine, I’m making breakfast anyway. I’m just giving you permission to wait a few minutes before you follow me.”

Ben nearly choked as she gave him another cavalier shrug, then she made her way from the master bedroom into the hallway outside, and he fell back against her mattress, processing the shock of what had just happened. She’d just given him permission to pleasure himself in her god damned bedroom. 

Could he do it? Their friendship was still new, but that wasn’t necessarily a reason to feel guilty — he’d enjoyed the sexual company of his friends before — and yet he did. The more Ben thought about it, the guiltier he felt, but all the same… he was achingly hard and his mind was constantly supplying him images of Rey beneath him. It didn’t seem to be stopping either no matter what he did. He could’ve thought of anything else on earth and yet his thoughts always came back to  _ her.  _

Arousal winning over logic, Ben reached down, and undid the laces of his trousers, cursing his immortal body for still having some basic, human needs. Still his brain was screaming in delight as his hands carefully undid his laces, then he carefully checked to make sure Rey’s bedroom door was closed before he finally reached down beneath the fabric, and took his cock in his hands. 

Already he could feel a hint of sweet relief flooding through him at the first touch, and he wondered how long it had been since the last time he’d done this. As he began to stroke up his length, he pondered why the hell he’d ever  _ stopped.  _ His immortal life brought him misery, so why wouldn’t he seek our pleasure in anyway he could find? He’d yell at himself more later, though. Right now…

Ben moaned involuntarily as he began to touch himself, gliding his thumb over his top at the end of every other stroke to gather the precome that had started to bead there, and using it as a lubricant to move his hand even faster over his erection. It really had been too long since the last time he’d done this — probably months if not years. He’d just… forgotten to, he’d barely even woken up hard since the last time he’d been in her company. It was as if being around Rey had awakened something within him, but he wasn’t going to allow himself to think too hard on the implications of that. 

That didn’t stop him from picturing her, though, as he touched himself. Didn’t stop him from imagining what would’ve happened if he’d leaned down and kissed her when they’d wrestled playfully in her bed not five minutes earlier… if she’d let him kiss her. He imagined the hands gripping her wrist moving down to undo the ties of her nightgown, to lift it up and over her head before he descended on her naked body, his mouth exploring every piece of her exposed skin while she whispered his name. 

In a moment of weakness, he let himself imagine what it would be like to taste her. He let himself imagine her coming apart beneath his tongue as he lapped her up like she was the best thing he’d ever tasted. That image alone nearly sent him over the edge, and he had the feeling he’d be joining her for breakfast sooner than she expected at the rate he was going. 

His breathing grew short as he brought himself to completion, clenching his teeth together so he didn’t scream her name when he finally reached his climax, his come spilling out over the shirt he still wore — which was mercifully white — dampening the fabric. Ben sighed as his head fell back limply against the pillow, the ache between his legs relieved at last, but at what cost?

That was another thing he refused to think about as he hurriedly tucked his softened cock back into his pants, and pushed himself upright from the bed to dress for the day. All the while he tried not to think about what he’d just done, about the way her moans sounded in his head as the mental image of her caused him to come apart. 

_ Oh hell _ , he was falling into a pit, wasn’t he? He was falling into a deep, gaping hole from which he’d never be able to crawl out of, and suddenly he felt frightened. He hurriedly covered the stain on his stomach with the fancy coat he’d worn the night before, and walked out onto the balcony to get some fresh air. He had a feeling he’d need it before he finally joined her for breakfast. 

That morning, Venice was absolutely stunning, and it became instantly clear to him why she’d chosen to live there; why she’d made this her life. The canal water flowed quietly past her home, but just loudly enough to provide white noise, and it wasn’t exactly clear blue, but like all water tended to do, it sparkled as the sun lit it, reflecting the pinks and purples of the sunrise as the distant yet near star began its arch in the sky. A few gondolas lazily made their way through the water as he watched; smiling as one of the drivers gave Ben a friendly wave as he passed, which he returned before he finally decided to make his way inside. He didn’t want Rey’s neighbors spotting him and making her life difficult long after he was gone. She deserved better than that. 

A minute later, he finally made his way into her kitchen table, where a plate of eggs and rye bread waited for him with a goblet of wine, and vivid flashbacks to all the meals they’d shared together both in Portugal and France filled him as he watched her finish pouring wine into her own cup. “You feeling better?” she asked, and he nearly choked on his own breath as the memory of what he’d just done filled him.

“Much,” he replied, then he cleared his throat. “It’s very beautiful this morning… the um… the city is beautiful.”

“What a dull change in subject,” Rey teased, then she sat down at the table, and immediately took a sip of her wine. “But in all seriousness… I hope I didn’t make you feel awkward by my suggestion… I figured… we’ve been through all sorts of other things together… and we’re both no strangers to… that sort of thing…”

Ben nodded as he sat down beside her. “You’re absolutely right,” he said, attempting to keep his voice level, as if he hadn’t just come harder than he had in decades to her mental image. “Probably a thousand years of sexual experience between us.”

“I’d wager you’re right,” she told him, then she cleared her throat. “I… I don’t feel weird about it if you don’t.” 

Ben shook his head. “No… no, I don’t. We are friends, after all.”

“Right.”

“And…” He paused, unsure how to end his sentence without making an already somewhat awkward situation worse. “Never mind.”

Rey quirked an eyebrow at him,but didn’t press him further on the subject as she dug into her food. “When does your ship leave?” she asked, then at his bewildered expression, she gestured vaguely with her hand. “I assume you still intend to head to Athens?”

He blinked at her a few times, then he remembered his ship and the dozen or so other men waiting for him to cross the Mediterranean with them later that afternoon. “Oh, right,” he replied, looking down sorrowfully at his eggs. “I suppose I do.”

Rey’s hand twitched on the table, and for a second or two he thought she wanted to reach for his hand, but then she pulled it back. “You don’t have to go. My home is always open to you, you know.”

Giving her a brief nod, he sighed. “I do,” he told her, then he took another sip of his wine. A part of him really did want to stay with her, but another was still reeling from Portugal, and yet another part was struggling to fight his burgeoning feelings for her. He could stay, but he wasn’t going to. His stubborn streak had, as always, won out. “But I won’t. Not this time.”

“Oh.” It was a one syllable vocalization, but it said everything she was thinking. She didn’t want him to go either, and he tried to convince his brain that it was just because she wanted and needed her friend there, but that hopeful side of him that harbored feelings for her butted in asking if there was a chance it was because she felt something for him, too. 

But that was impossible. The universe would never do him such a kindness — would never give  _ them  _ something good or pure — not after all it had put them through. It wasn’t fair, really, how much they suffered, and the more he thought about it, the more sorrowful he became. “But you know where to find me,” he told her. “And if you’ll tell me… where will I be able to find you?”

She paused for a moment, thinking on her answer a while before she finally seemed to settle on one. “I think eventually I might start making my trek back up to our island, where this all started. Maybe I can… maybe I can figure out how this happened… or at least where we come from.”

“Eventually?”

Rey gave him a light chuckle. “I had wanted to see Naples in the south. I’ve heard it’s beautiful,” she told him, then she shrugged. “If I’m going to live forever, I might as well see everything the world has to offer.”

“Agreed,” Ben said with a nod. “So for the next twenty years, I’ll be in Greece, and you’ll be heading to the south?”

“I suppose so.”

“When do you think we’ll meet again?”

“When fate decides it has lost interest in being cruel to us,” she told him, then she took another bite of her eggs, and gestured to his. “You should eat more, the journey you’re about to undertake won’t be easy.”

Ben gave her a half-hearted smile. “It’s not as if it can kill me,” he joked, then her expression shifted to match his, both of them sitting in the awkward silence that followed the renewed realization that they were more than six hundred years old. 

She shifted in her seat, taking a sip of her wine as she looked at him. “We’ve… we’ve known each other five hundred years,” she breathed, and he blinked as he thought back on all his memories, and realized she was right. 

“Half a millenium… You’re right…”

“I can’t pinpoint it down to the exact year,” she told him, then she set down the goblet. “But… I know I met you about a quarter century after my hundredth birthday, and it’s been at least five since then. So… I’ve known you for five hundred years.”

Ben’s jaw went slack, then he swallowed nervously. “That’s… wow… that’s…” He ran a hand through his hair, recalling all that had happened between them. Everything from the moment they’d met, when she’d saved his life in the market and he’d first learnt her name, to the moment they had their first fight, then the one where they’d both bled on the beach, when they’d first embraced by a funeral pyre, when they’d met again in Portugal and drank themselves silly, when they’d shared his bed, frolicked in the waves, and finally to the masked dance they’d shared the night before. 

_ Holy hell _ , it had been a long five hundred years. Impossibly long.

“Five hundred years,” Ben breathed, then his lips parted to a grin that was downright shit eating. “Well then, happy anniversary, Rey.”

His friend — who had been taking a sip of her drink up until that point — spat her wine back into the goblet as she processed his statement, and then he realized what he’d said, but it was too late to take it back. “I-I hadn’t realized we’d g-gotten married,” she stammered.

Bursting quickly into action, Ben worked to correct himself. “No! I hadn’t meant it like that. There’s… there’s more than one way to have an anniversary, not just marriage…” As he said it, though, he wasn’t quite sure which of them he was trying to convince more.

“Right! You’re um… you’re right…” Rey said, then she took the final sip of her wine, and looked down at the empty plate in front of her. “I’m… I’m finished here… I think I’ll go dress, then I’ll walk you to the docks if that’s alright?”

He nodded faster than he probably needed to, but with the awkward energy that had settled over the room, it felt necessary. Before he could say anything else, she stood and left the room, a breeze drifting past him from where her flowy dressing gown swished as she turned, leaving him sitting there in shock. 

Once she was gone, Ben leaned back in his chair, and buried his hands in his hair as he felt himself turn completely crimson. “Shit,” he whispered to himself. “Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit.” What the hell was he thinking? Bringing up anniversaries? Well, she’d been the one who’d brought up marriage, but still he’d pointed their conversation in that direction, hadn’t he? What a mad idea that was… Marrying Rey. They were friends, and while he felt something for her, he was fairly certain she felt  _ nothing _ for him, and… and it would be impossible… wouldn’t it?

Shudders ran through his whole body as he stood up, and began clearing the table like he always used to whenever they lived together, leaving her dishes in a wash basin before he made his way back up to her bedroom. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do, and so he made his way up her elegant staircase, walking down her short hallway until he reached her bedroom door, then he raised his hand to knock on it thrice. 

At least, that was his intention. Rey opened the door as he lifted his hand, her eyes widening as she saw him, but then an awkward smile parted her lips, and a pink flush filled her rouge coated cheeks. Ben’s heart raced in his chest as he see her in civilian clothing, especially when his eyes took in the square neckline of her dress, which showed off more cleavage than he’d seen of her in the five hundred years they’d known each other. The dress itself was an opulent looking thing of a coppery brown shade, trimmed with white around the edges of the neckline and anywhere it provided an accent. She’d paired it with a matching shawl and tied half her hair behind her head with a thin ribbon so that it was out of her face, allowing him the perfect view of it as she stared up at him. 

“Everything alright?” she asked him, and it felt like an eternity passed where he just stood there gaping at her like a fish out of water before he finally nodded. “Good lord, Ben, you act like you’ve never seen a woman before.” She then pushed past him, laughing as she went, and he returned her laugh nervously. Yes, he’d seen plenty of women before, but he’d never seen  _ her  _ quite like this. She was different. With Rey… he wasn’t sure how to explain it. 

Not giving himself time to dwell on it, Ben walked into the bedroom, grabbing both their masks off her nightstand, then he followed her back down the stairs into the main room, tucking them into his jacket as he went. Over the centuries, he’d started collecting pieces of his life as a way of sort of remembering who he’d been and who he was growing to be, and if a lot of those pieces tended to have something to do with Rey… he chalked it up to a coincidence. She was a rather large part of his story, and he was the same for hers, after all. It felt like he spent most of his days waiting for the next time he’d see her, and if he were being honest, he was perfectly content with that. 

When she saw him again, she smiled, and wrapped her shawl more tightly around her arms. “Are you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” he said, then Rey pushed open the front door, and held it open for him with an expecting smile. “Aren’t I supposed to be the one holding the door open for you?”

Rey scoffed, smacking him casually upside the head as he made his way out of her home. “Since when have either of us given a damn about gender roles, Ben? We’re too old.”

A laugh escaped him as he stepped out onto the street, the sound covering that of her skirts swishing as she followed him outside, shutting her door firmly before she joined him. “I was only kidding,” he told her, then she too was giggling as she took his arm, and the two of them made their way down the Venetian streets. 

“Next time I see you, will you tell me what Athens is like?” she asked, then he blinked down at her in surprise. “I’d been meaning to head east myself one day. Perhaps after I’m done seeing everything in the south.”

“Absolutely,” he assured her, resting a hand over the one she had gripping his arm as they passed by another couple walking down the street in the early morning light. To anyone looking in, it would seem he was courting her, which had sounded like the best impression to give passers by so they could have their last moments together in peace, but now had his mind a flutter with thoughts of actually doing it. “I’ll tell you all about the temples, the architecture, and the people, too. Whatever you want to know, I’ll give it to you.”

Another smile parted her lips. “I’d like that.”

“As long as you tell me all about Naples… I’ve always wanted to know if Vesuvius truly is a mountain of fire as the scholars say.”

“I think that’s a fair trade,” she said. “You have yourself a deal, Ben.”

“Always a pleasure doing business with you, Rey,” he said, then they both burst into another fit of giggles as they turned onto another street away from the canal. 

A few more minutes went by, their conversation turning to the casual — things briefly focusing on how good the weather would be for sailing — as the time went on, before Rey changed the subject to something of importance. “You didn’t bring anything off your ship with you?”

Ben shook his head. “No, I left it all on board. Not that I had much with me, but I’d figured I’d sleep on that ship or with whomever I met last night at the ball.”

Rey’s cheeks flushed anew at this, then she gathered herself before he had the chance to call her out on it. “I see.”

“And I did…” Ben teased, then she reached over with her free hand, and swatted his arm as he practically guffawed, the noise far too loud for the early morning, but he was far too amused by Rey’s reaction to his blatant flirting. 

“You’re going to get yourself in a lot of trouble one day if you keep talking like this,” she warned him, then she shrugged. “Not that you’ll mind. It’s not like it can kill you.”

“Now you’re getting it,” he replied, then she scoffed at him again as they stumbled upon the port, and his ship finally came into view. “There she is… first ship I’ve ever named.”

“You named it?” Rey asked, her voice disbelieving as she stared at him. 

Ben nodded. “I did, you’re looking at the _ Millenium Falcon. _ First of her name, I’m sure there’ll be more.”

Rey’s gaze turned to the ship, taking in the size of the mast, the white sails folded up to await the moment the wind would blow them out to sea, and the magnificent woodwork composing the hull. It wasn’t much bigger than the one he’d seen her sail into Portugal on thirty years earlier, but it was still magnificent. At least, it was in his eyes. 

“Seems sturdy enough to cross the sea,” Rey said shakily, then Ben frowned, pausing them in their walk as he turned to face her with concern written all over his face. 

“Are you alright?”

She nodded. “I’m fine, I just…” she looked down at the ground as a breeze blew past them, sweeping a stray hair from her face to reveal the tears glistening at the edges of her eyes. “I’m sorry I left you all those years ago. Maybe if I hadn’t… you’d be more inclined to stay.”

Excitement stirred in his gut. “You want me to stay?”

“You’re the only company I ever truly have. Everyone else comes and goes as they please… no matter what happens between us… that isn’t going to change.”

Ben closed his eyes, listening to the sounds of gulls cawing overhead, and waves gently lapping at the docks and shoreline, trying to find serenity before he spoke to her again. When he did, he let go of her arm, and stepped forward, opening his arms to her in a warning she was about to be hugged. 

Rey didn’t wait for him, though, she simply wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him close. Initially he stumbled backwards in shock, but then he returned her embrace, pulling her tight against him as he revealed in the feeling of just holding her close. Her name left him again and again, and he only just resisted the temptation to press another kiss to the side of her head as she pulled away, and looked up at him with sad eyes. 

“We’ll see each other again,” he promised her, then he took one of her hands in his. “We’re just not ready right now.” It was true, they weren’t. Both of them were still wounded from the last time they’d chosen to abandon each other; they’d made that very clear the night before when they’d argued outside the ball room. 

“I agree, but I hate to see you leave.”

“I know,” he replied, then in a moment of foolish bravery, he lifted her hand to his mouth, and pressed a light, lingering kiss there, delighting in the shiver she failed to hide in response, his heart racing as he looked up into her darkened irises. Emboldened by her reaction, he let go of her hand, then he reached up, cupping her cheek as he grinned. “But I’d bet you  _ love  _ to watch me go.”

Rey threw her head back in laughter as he began to back away in the direction of his ship. “You bloody wish, Ben!” she shouted at him, but they were both still laughing as he walked further away. “You wish!”

“Maybe!” he replied, then he clapped his hands together. “I guess we’ll find out if the stars were listening next century!”

“I can promise you, they weren’t!”

“We’ll see!” he cried, then he brazenly tossed her one last wink before he turned, and walked toward his ship, feeling her eyes on him the entire time until he boarded, then he knew she was gone. 

Once he was on board, Ben stared at the spot she’d once been in with a smile on his face, finding he suddenly couldn’t wait for another century to pass if it meant he’d see her again.

_ If it meant the stars had listened to his wishes.  _


	13. Paris, 1628 CE

Far too long passed after that before they saw each other again. Rey spent another fifty years traveling south, finding comfort near the slopes of Vesuvius until the mountain exploded, providing her the perfect excuse to fake a death to her neighbors and leave, beginning to journey back north. She’d gotten the thought in her head again to journey back to the island where she and Ben had been born, and started making the slow trek back up to where it had all began. 

Rey journeyed up through the northern border of Italy, crossing back into France and spending another fifty or so years making her way slowly up north through the country before she wound up in a city she hadn’t seen in centuries. Paris was bustling with life that year, though she supposed it had done so every year since the last time she’d seen it, but it surprised her just how much it — like all major cities had since the passing of the plague — had grown. 

The city wasn’t exactly beautiful, but nowhere was. The architecture in places was something to admire; the Notre Dame cathedral towered over everything in a way that made her wonder how mortals had ever made such a thing, and a multitude of other, centuries old structures had her eyes wide in marvel. There was something beautiful to see everywhere she went, and that thought brought a smile to her face as she made her way through the city with a bag hanging from her shoulder on a single, make-shift strap, a bead of sweat working its way down her forehead in spite of the cool, autumn air. 

She could have easily obtained a fancier method of travel to get from the nearby southern town of Niima than making the trek on foot, but for the last twenty or so years, she’d been keeping a lower profile. Pretending to be a rich noblewoman as often as she had led to far more recognition than she needed, and as the world grew more skilled at record keeping, changing her identity every twenty years became an increasingly difficult task. 

That was why Paris was just a brief stop; somewhere for her to refuel before moving on northward. 

Or at least, it was supposed to be. That had all changed when instead of heading straight for the inn she intended to stay at for the night, she decided to stop by a market to pick up food instead. Her life changed anew because her stomach had rumbled and she’d had a craving for apples. 

Once she found the market, Rey made a beeline for a man standing behind a counter full of a sizeable amount of the fruit, his smile was wide as she approached, though she figured it’d probably drop once he realized she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and she was a woman alone. Still she proceeded, keeping her untouched left hand hidden from view beneath the navy colored shawl she had draped around her shoulders, and handed the man the money necessary to pay for three apples, two of which she stuffed in the bag carrying all of her things before she asked the merchant where the nearest inn was. “I don’t suppose you know where one might find a good night’s sleep? I’m just passing through town,” she explained to him, and the merchant raised a suddenly skeptical eyebrow at her, falling quiet. 

A horses approaching hoofbeats filled their silence on the street for a moment before the merchant spoke again, but when he did, both their eyes were on a black, iron-rimmed carriage that was being pulled by two equally dark stallions through the street, and both of them were distracted. “Two blocks down miss,” he said, and she only just heard and comprehended what he said as the carriage moved past them, then their attentions focused back on each other. “There’s a place where a woman like yourself will fit in just fine.”

She only just resisted rolling her eyes, and gave him a sigh instead. “Sir, I mean an honest inn, not a brothel,” she insisted, finding herself more eager and hopeful than ever for a time when she wouldn’t be looked down on because she didn’t have a cock between her legs. “I need—“

Ahead of them, the carriage came to a grinding halt, the wheels squeaking as the horses whinnied in protest from the sudden stop. Rey and the merchant’s heads swiveled in its direction, captivated by it anew as a door opened, and a well-dressed man in a black doublet with the ever-present puffed sleeves that had taken over Western fashion stepped out, looking around in either direction before his eyes landed on her, and they both recognized one another instantly. 

Thanking the merchant for his service, Rey rushed forward, a smile parting her lips as she realized he’d found her again after all that time. It had been another century and a decade or so since the last time she’d seen him, and she was starting to think it had been too long again when as usual, the universe decided to remind her that he was still out there, and he wouldn’t leave her for good anytime soon. 

Ben began to step forward out of the shadow of the carriage he’d stepped down from as she walked, taking in her slightly more haggard appearance — a maroon dress with a navy shawl and an updo that wasn’t quite in fashion anymore — as she took in his still rather elegant style. It would seem that he hadn’t quite had the same recognition troubles she had. Or rather, he just didn’t care as much. Either way, she thought he looked utterly ridiculous with his puffy sleeves and breeches that added equal amounts of volume to his knees before fading off into white stockings, and heeled shoes that added unnecessary height. Worst of all though, was that damned white collar encircling his neck, which Rey thought made him look downright foolish as she finally got within hearing distance from him. 

Another figure in equally foolish — and darkly colored — dress jumped out of the carriage on the other side a minute later, his pinched features gathered into a sneer as he made his way around to the rear near where Ben was standing to take in Rey’s appearance. She had no doubt he wasn’t entirely pleased that his friend had made them stop, and now was sizing her up to see if she was worth it. From the look in his eyes as they raked up and down her body, he’d decided she wasn’t. 

Not that she cared about the judgements from any men, especially men like him. 

“Rey,” Ben breathed, his smile lighting up Paris like the sun. “It’s good to see you.”

“We meet again,” Rey told him, her smile parting her lips as she approached the carriage, barely withholding her laughter at the ridiculousness of his appearance. “But before we greet one another properly, I must ask… what in God’s name are you wearing?”

He looked down at himself, then he reached back, and undid the clasp holding the ridiculous white collar around his neck, letting it fall casually into his hands. “Better?”

“Not much, but at least you’re not burning my eyes to look at you.”

“One hundred and thirteen years have passed since we last saw each other, and this is how you greet me?” he asked, stepping forward again until she was forced to look up to see his eyes. 

Rey shrugged casually, not letting the proximity she held with him sway her in the slightest. “When you dress like a King’s fool, yes.”

Ben’s grin in greeting was even wider, and almost mischievous. He pointedly ignored the inquisitive stare of the man he was traveling with, seeming to still be too stunned at seeing her again after all these years. Had it really been a century since the last time she’d seen him? “What brings you to France?”

“Traveling back north,” she admitted, then she shifted, putting her hands on her hips as she recalled why. 

“What for?”

Rey sighed, then lowered her voice so the curious man who sat in the carriage, staring at them with eyes the color of the sea hair like a flame wouldn’t hear her as she spoke of the secret the two of them carried around at all times. “My neighbors started to notice I wasn’t getting older, I wanted to get as far away from there as possible until…”

She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to. He understood the dilemma she faced perfectly well, for it had been one he’d been grappling with for centuries now, and sometimes he’d done it by her side. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d spent more than ten years in one spot. The last time he’d spent more than one anywhere had been when he was waiting on the coast of Portugal for her. 

There was something sad in his eyes as he listened to her, but it was fleeting, flickering away before he opened his mouth to respond. “Understandable,” he replied, then he cleared his throat. “Where are you living these days? We should… we should go somewhere and talk later once Armitage and I are settled.”

“Ah, so that’s the name of the little weasel looking man?”

Ben snorted. “His name is Lord Armitage Hux. He’s a good friend of mine. Much less weasel-like once you get to know him.”

Rey eyed the ginger man watching them from the carriage’s rear, then she shrugged. “Maybe so,” she replied, shaking her head. “But I haven’t got anywhere to stay tonight. I’m just passing through.”

“Oh.”

“I was trying to acquire a room at an inn, but the man I asked about it accused me of being a prostitute.”

Ben scoffed. “Who? The merchant?” he asked, then when she gave him a nod, he crossed his arms over his chest. A contemplative look crossed his face, then he cleared his throat. “Why don’t you stay with me instead?”

“I don’t think your friend would approve,” she told him. “I don’t exactly dress like I did a century ago. Maybe if I hadn’t sold all my gowns…”

“I don’t care if he approves. I’ve earned his trust. I’m sure there’s room in his home for you at least for the night,” Ben replied, shrugging his shoulders again. “Until you can find a proper inn to stay at.”

She looked at him apprehensively for a moment, unsure whether following him was the best decision she could’ve made, but then she recalled all the nights she’d spent tossing and turning with nightmares since the last time they’d seen one another. Ben was the greatest solution for her nightmares, and she needed a good night’s sleep. It had been too long since the last time she’d made it through the night without screaming. 

With that in mind, Rey gave him a nod, then offered Ben her hand, and grinned. “I’ll go with you,” she told him, then she glanced at his friend. “But I think you ought to introduce us before I spend an evening in his home.”

Ben looked between them, then squeezed her hand. “Quite right,” he said, then he led her over to where his stiff-faced friend was still watching them with a keen eye. “Armitage, I’d like you to meet Rey…. she’s the friend I was telling you about on the way up here.”

At this, the man relaxed, and gave Ben a slightly mischievous look, to which he received a glare in return from the man presently holding her hand. Rey’s eyebrows furrowed as she watched the two hold a tense nonverbal conversation, which made her increasingly desperate to know what they were thinking as it went on. Eventually, it stopped, and the man with flame colored hair gave her a stiff welcome. “Ah, Rey, I’ve heard wonderful things…” he said, though he sounded rather disappointed as he spoke. “I’d gotten the impression you were more… elegant.”

“ _ Armitage _ ,” Ben hissed, then Rey let go of his hand, the back of hers pressing into his chest as she stepped between the two. 

“It’s alright, Ben,” she promised him, then she turned toward Armitage. “Yes, I used to be, I’m just… between homes at the moment. I’m on my way north into Cherbourg to… see family.”

“Dressed like that?”

Rey scoffed. “Please, this dress isn’t that worn down yet,” she muttered, then she stiffened her posture. “Not that it matters much.”

“Armitage, my friend needs a place to stay for the night,” Ben interrupted, then he stepped forward, and leaned against the carriage. “I know how large your home here is. It has more than enough room for Rey to stay under the roof with us.”

His eyes widened. “You expect me to shelter her when we’ve only just met?”

“I know it’s difficult for you to trust a stranger, but you can trust Rey because I trust her. I’ve known her longer than you can imagine.” Ben leaned forward a little ways, lowering his voice as he spoke again. “Please, just one night.”

Skepticism was still rife in his gaze, but eventually Armitage relented, and cocked his head toward the carriage. “Get in, both of you,” he said, already making his way around to the other side of the carriage. “Before we cause a scene.”

Ben and Rey looked at each other, then his eyes flickered down to the collar he still held in one hand before he lifted it up. “Do you mind if I put this on you? Perhaps if you look more like one of the higher class women, he’ll relent in his taunts.”

She eyed the collar in disdain. “It’s hideous, Ben. Far more hideous than what I’m wearing now.”

“Yes, well, the rich don’t always have the best taste in clothing, do they?” He held it out to her again. “Put it on yourself if you’d like, but I think it’ll help.”

Rey snorted at him again, placing a hand over his, and pushing it down in a silent rejection before she walked over to the side of the carriage he’d gotten out of, and opened the door. “Are you coming?”

Rolling his eyes, her centuries old friend followed her path, and as she climbed into the carriage, she felt his eyes on her, which shouldn’t have made her heart race, but for some reason, it most definitely did. They wound up sitting on the same bench, facing Armitage, who stared at them with a calculating stare before instructing the driver she had only just briefly caught a glimpse of to move forward. 

The carriage started with a jolt, and she involuntarily reached out for something to hold onto, catching her grip on Ben’s arm as she stabilized herself from the sudden movement. “Oh, damn it, sorry,” she muttered, feeling a blush creep up her cheeks as she let go of him. “It’s been a while since I’ve ridden in one of these, I wasn’t expecting the…”

“I understand,” Ben assured her as he replaced the collar at his neck, making himself look instantly ridiculous again. 

Another giggle left her as she stared at him, then she shook her head, turning instead to stare out the window as they passed through the heart of Paris. “So where is it that you live, Armitage?”

The man sitting opposite the two of them startled at being addressed. “A little ways to the east of the city’s center. No more than an hour’s ride from here.”

“Ah, so just long enough of a drive that it’s certifiably awkward that you’ve spent most of the time since we met insulting my apparent class?” Maybe Rey didn’t let a lot of things bother her, and maybe she’d had worse in the past than Armitage Hux, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy teasing him a little and making him squirm. 

Armitage cringed at his own actions as she’d hoped he would. “Ah, yes, quite enough.” He cleared his throat. “I do apologize for my behavior, I just didn’t want the people to see us and start gossiping. You know how rude they can be.”

“What? You think they would’ve thought you were taking me home with you for…” She gestured vaguely with her hands. 

“Yes. And likely with him, too,” he replied, eyes flicking over to Ben. The two people on the other side of the carriage both flushed a spectacular shade of beet red, then they looked to the ground. “Ah… I see I’ve made things awkward… I’ll um, not speak for the remainder of the ride.”

“That may be for the best,” Ben replied, then Rey spared him another glance, catching a faint smile at the corners of his mouth as the carriage brought them out of the heart of Paris, and into the nearby countryside. 

The sun hit high noon as they finally approached Hux’s home, which made Rey’s jaw drop from its sheer size. She’d been in many opulent homes before, and she’d owned sizable ones herself, but the one she saw before her was an absolute behemoth of a house. It was worthy of the label of castle, if she were being perfectly honest, and it was easily the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. 

“Wow,” she breathed as the carriage ascended up a brief incline. “You live here?”

“Lovely, isn’t it?” Armitage asked in response, his voice regaining that cocky little lilt it’d had to it when they’d first met. 

Rey didn’t even care, too mesmerized by the building before her to notice his attitude. “Beautiful.”

“You told me it was nice, you didn’t mention it was magnificent,” Ben commented, placing his fingertips gingerly at the window as if he could reach out and touch the castle just by extending his hand. “Armitage, this is a marvel.”

“It was built by my father’s hand,” their host replied as the carriage pulled up to the front. “Well, I say my father, he simply paid for it and thus gets credited, but none of us are fools. We all know where such things truly come from.”

At this, her eyebrows shot up in shock, not expecting a man like him to say anything like that. “What?”

“My father was a far more despicable man than I,” Armitage explained as he opened his carriage door, then the others followed suit, grabbing their bags on the way out as they stared up at the front steps of the castle. “I’ve spent most of my life trying to disassociate myself from him. I may be an ass, but he was a monster.” With that said, he took a deep breath. “Anyway, we should get settled. I’ll have someone show you to your rooms, then we’ll gather before sundown for dinner?”

“Sounds perfect,” Ben replied. 

“And thank you for taking me in.”

“Yes, well, you’re a friend of Ben’s and…” Armitage looked back at her friend. “I trust him with my life. If he says I can trust you, then I suppose I can.”

That said, he moved forward, climbing up the front steps, and disappearing into the castle without another word. Rey blinked at him in disbelief, then she looked back at Ben. “Is he always like this?”

“Most of the time, yes;” Ben replied as the two began to walk up the stairs. 

“How’d you two meet, then? He seems to really like you, and he doesn’t strike me as the sort to trust easily.”

“I got him out of a scuffle in the south a few years ago. He had a bit of a gambling problem, pissed away all his money… and couldn’t pay off a debt.”

“Oh shit.”

“So I saved his life, and convinced him I was a distant cousin of his, and next thing I know he offers me passage to Paris,” Ben told her as they walked into the castle. “I don’t know why I agreed to go to Paris… but in hindsight I’m glad I did. It’s been too long since we last saw each other.”

“Are you trying to tell me you missed me, Ben?” she asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him as they walked into a massive room with a high ceiling that towered over their heads. She fought back another expression of awe as she focused on the man standing beside her, who was blushing anew as he realized what he’d implied. 

“I… um… I might…” he stumbled over his words for a while before he finally set down his things, and crossed the short space between them to wrap his arms around her waist, and pull her into a tight, long overdue embrace. 

Rey gasped, her whole body jolting at the surprise contact, but then she melted into him, taking him into her arms the same way he’d taken her into his, and burying her face in his chest. She felt Ben give a sigh of relief against her. “I missed you,” he admitted, then his grip tightened ever so slightly. “God, I missed you.”

“I missed you, too,” she told him, then she pulled back from their embrace, letting her arms fall to her sides. “All other things aside, it’s… it’s good to see you again.”

“We should go somewhere to talk,” he told her. “I want to know everything.”

“Everything?”

“Whatever you’re willing to tell me,” he replied with a light chuckle. “I’m sure your last century was far more interesting than mine.”

“You mean to tell me that you found Greece boring?”

Another laugh sounded from Ben as two well dressed members of Armitage’s staff came up to take their things. “I mean I’m more interested in what you’ve seen than repeating my experiences. Last I heard you were heading for Naples.”

“I was,” she replied, handing her things off to a shorter woman in clothing as rundown as hers was before beginning to follow her up a long staircase at the end of the room. “I’ll tell you about it in the evening.”

“I look forward to it,” he told her, then Rey went away upstairs, grinning helplessly as she tried not to steal one last glance at him as she walked away feeling as if her body was on fire everywhere he’d touched her. It had just been a hug, hadn’t it? Maybe it had been a little more than that, but it had been ages since they’d seen one another, and Ben had said he’d missed her during the act, so it had to be just because they’d been alone for so long, right?

She mulled over that thought for hours, especially when she saw Ben being placed in a room just down the hall from her. Maybe that sent her heart racing at a rate that would’ve concerned her if she was mortal, but it was one of those rare times she was somewhat grateful for her own immortality as they passed the hours until dinner. 

The meal they shared that evening was full of tension. Not just because things weren’t entirely smooth with Armitage, but because they were both clearly eager to have a moment to openly discuss things that no mortal ear was intended to listen in on. It felt like the longest meal of her seven hundred plus year life, and she longed for it to end. 

She excused herself the moment she decided she was no longer hungry, making her way back up through the massive house into the guest quarters as the sun began to set outside. Orange rays crept through enormous windows, illuminating curtains of a rich, deep-red to cast a brilliantly colored light over the castle’s hallways as she walked toward the room she was settled into for the night. Somewhere behind her, she heard the faint padding of heavy footsteps as Ben followed behind her. 

Pulling out of the hallway and into her bedroom, Rey shivered against the chill in the air, and immediately began to search about for a blanket or a fireplace. Lucky for her she spotted the latter of the two in seconds with wood stocked to its left side, and she rubbed her arms as she approached it, kneeling down to place the wood in the pit, then taking two loose stones from the floor, she struck them forcefully together, creating the spark that ignited the blaze before she stood up. Her breathing was shaky as she placed the rocks casually on top of the mantle, next to a beautiful, golden candlestick that towered over her head. She looked at it curiously for a moment, then jolted upon hearing a knock at her door. 

“Who is it?”

“It’s me,” she heard Ben’s voice say from the other side, then she breathed a heavy sigh of relief, rushing forth to open it and usher him inside before any of the household staff could notice he was there. 

She opened the door to see a slightly winded Ben standing on the other side, panting as he looked down at her, and noticeably without the collar or the doublet that had made him look rather foolish. He stood before her in simply his white linen shirt, trousers, and his boots, and for the first time since she’d seen him by the market, he actually looked like himself. The sight nearly brought a smile to her face as he greeted her.“Hi.”

“Please tell me you were at least a tiny bit subtle when you made your exit,” Rey replied as she let him into the room, noticing that he shivered as well upon entering. “Your friend already thinks I’m a prostitute as is.”

A nervous laugh escaped him, and he shook his head. “I am a terrible judge of my own character, Rey,” he admitted as he walked inside, then she closed the door behind him, and the two faced one another. 

He was standing a bit closer than she thought was necessary, but she didn’t mind it, even though she had to crane her neck a little ways to look at him. For a moment, she saw the same look in his eyes he’d gotten just before pulling her into a tight embrace, but then he seemed to think better of it, and instead wandered over to the fire, where two arm chairs were positioned at either side at an angle that allowed them to view the blaze while they talked. With that in mind, she followed him over to the fire, and the two sat down side by side as it burned, letting it warm their cold hands as they stared at one another, unsure how to open the conversation. 

Rey watched him curiously, taking note of the haunted look he had in his eyes. Ben always looked like he was seeing ghosts, but in that moment, it looked like they were dancing around right in front of him, like they were the shadows that swirled and flickered in the firelight as it crackled dimly in the background. Something had happened to him in the century since they’d last met and shared her bed in Venice. In specific, something  _ terrible _ had happened to him. She could only begin to fathom just what it was. 

“What happened to you since the last time we saw each other?” Rey asked bluntly. 

Ben’s eyes grew weary as he looked over at her. “Must we start with something so bleak?”

“Bad news, then?”

“Horrible.”

“Was that why you thought Athens would be boring?”

He paused, then he leaned forward, staring into the fire in a way that had the blaze reflecting perfectly onto his irises. “Athens was beautiful. The whole country was… it was one of the nicer places I’ve been to.” Ben shook his head. “It was on the journey here that things went south.”

“What happened?” she asked gently, fighting the temptation to reach out and touch him. 

“I’m more interested in what happened to you.”

Rey straightened her posture. “Stayed in Venice for another decade, started to get attention for not aging, then I left, wound up at Naples. Volcano went off, so I faked my death, and started heading back north. Wound up here.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s all you’re getting until you tell me what’s bothering you,” she told him, then she sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, it was hard at times. On occasion, it was absolutely impossible, but Ben…” At this, she allowed herself to reach out in the space between them, and take his hand. “You look like you’re suffering from it more than I am at the moment; so what’s wrong?”

There was another heartbeat skipping pause before he finally answered her. “We were on our way out of Greece and north through Sarajevo, and… there was a thunderstorm, a bad one.” She could see the lightning in her eyes, hear the thunder in the fire and his voice, and feel the terror as he spoke vividly of the storm. “The rain poured harder than any I’ve ever seen in my life, and the lightning…” He swallowed, closing his eyes as he thought about what he was going to say next. “I was struck by it. I fell from my horse. The men I was with were astonished that I was alive, but… all I could think about was that I finally remembered.”

“Remembered what, Ben?” Rey asked, then he stood up from the armchair, and looked down at her. 

“Rey… I had a family,” he breathed, and her heart broke in her chest for him, for the man she’d known for the last six hundred years because of all they’d been through. Together or not. “I… I had a mother, a father, and an uncle… I never married before it happened, but… Rey I remember them.” His voice broke then, and he walked over by the fire, bracing both of his hands against the mantle as he watched it burn. 

“I remember things… I remember the tiniest little details, but never their names,” he continued, and Rey stood silent, thumbing at the silky material of her dress as he told her everything he knew about his mortal life. “My mother, I can’t even remember her god damn name… but she was… she was beautiful when she was young and I…” At last, Ben broke, throwing an angry fist into the mantle, reminding her dimly of when she’d watched him tear himself apart on a tree three hundred years earlier. “ _ Damn it!  _ I had to watch her die.. And… and my father... My father... he was a stupid, stupid man. He always had his foot in his mouth. Always too stubborn for his own good— _ I watched him die!  _ I watched them all die!” He reared his fist back once more, and slammed it hard into the wood. She cried out his name, begging for him to stop as he did it again and again.

“Ben! Remember the last time we were here together?” she shouted, and finally he stopped, his fist freezing mid-punch as he looked up at her, his face red as tears began to well within his eyes. “Do you remember what you promised me?”

He paused, then he breathed shakily. “That I wouldn’t do it again…” he reminded both her and himself. “That I’d  _ never _ hurt myself like that again.”

“Then please,” she begged him. “Please keep that promise.”

Ben shook his head. “It’s not fair,” he told her, then they grew silent for a moment, and he seemed to refuel his anger. “And that man.” He rounded on her suddenly, absentmindedly reaching up with his now bloodied hand to grab the candlestick he’d nearly knocked from the mantle, righting it as he spoke. “That ass of a man who has been granting me passage into Italy? Who helped you into this very home? I will watch him die, too, if I don’t leave him behind here in Paris… I’ll watch the light fade from his eyes.”

All she could do was nod as tears of her own brimmed to her eyes. She knew what that felt like, she’d been feeling it on her own all these years after all, and she’d certainly had moments where she had completely broken down. She’d just never done it in front of him. To see Ben, the man she’d always thought of as so strong, so capable of surviving anything in such a way was breaking her in half. “Ben, I’m…”

She didn’t get to finish her sentence, for not a moment later he slammed his palm into the mantle. He only did it once, but still crimson drops of blood scattered onto the floor from where the cuts on his hand were still healing. “And it’s not fucking fair! Why is it always us, Rey? Why? Why can’t we be like everyone else? Why do we have to watch them grow old and die and we keep fucking living?”

“Ben-“

“I’m tired of it! I have been exhausted for centuries because of it! Do you know what I would give to see one wrinkle—“

“Ben-“

“One  _ gray hair? _ ”

“Ben!” she shouted, rushing up to him before his rant could go any further, and taking his hands into hers, yanking him with all of her strength into her direction so he was facing her. He was panting hard when she looked at him, panting hard and sweating like he’d seen a ghost. It was a look she recognized all too well in herself, and she felt another pang of misery for him. 

“I know all of those feelings,” she said, her voice barely a whisper as it shook. “I have watched so many people die. I have lost count of how many people I’ve lost.” Her entire body was trembling, her eyes clenching shut as she adjusted her grip onto his forearms, holding him a little bit closer because she needed it. She needed someone there. Someone whom she could close her eyes on and not have them be gone when she opened them. The one person who was a constant in her life, whom she could always depend on to be there when she needed him most. “Ben, I can’t remember my family, but I’ve loved people too over the years. I’ve grown attached, and watched them wither, and die. Same as you.”

His chest was heaving, she could tell from the way he was breathing harder than anyone she’d ever heard. She could hear his anxiety, could feel it in the way his own large, firm hands gripped her elbows the same way she was gripping his. They stood there for a moment, simply shaking in the light of Ben’s outburst, both wondering what would come next. 

She got her answer in the form of Ben crying out weakly, tears wet in that small little noise, and she opened her eyes to see him letting go of her hands, falling to his knees in front of her as his entire body continued to quake. In all the six hundred years she’d known him, she’d never seen him quite like this. They’d been broken, they always had, but it had never shown so prominently than it did when Ben was on his knees in front of her, looking up at her with tears falling involuntarily from his eyes with every blink. 

Without another moment’s hesitation, as if he couldn’t bear to let her see him like this any longer, Ben leaned forward, and wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing his face into the fabric of her dress over her stomach as he began to sob. Each one wracked his entire massive frame, the fingers gripping tightly into the back of her dress shaking worst of all as he unleashed six centuries of pent up frustration into Rey’s dress. 

It took her even less time to decide to wrap her arms around his neck, and weave her hands through his hair as she held him to her, finding that she wanted to be held just as badly as he did in that moment. Tears pricked at her own eyes and she let them fall as they closed again. She held onto Ben with every ounce of strength she had, her grip on him iron as her own quiet cries were all but drowned out by his anguish. 

He was right. It wasn’t fair. Why was it always them? Why was fate so cruel? It was always just the two of them throughout all of space and time it seemed, and everyone else was just white noise, just a buzzing fly in the background of their massive lifespans. Only, they weren’t just white noise, were they? Every once in awhile, someone made an impact on them. She thought Gwen and Dopheled; whom Ben had brought to her home during the plague, one dying just moments in, but the other living long enough to alter both their lives, then shatter their emotions irreparably. Just like the man he knew now, who had granted them shelter, and whom she prayed would never hear what was transpiring within his guest chambers as night fell on the castle. 

Her thoughts turned to the people she had met. The ones she’d dared to fall in love with, whose company she enjoyed for a few decades before they withered away into dust and left her alone again, of Jessika and her bravery against all things, who had left her in the night so Rey wouldn’t have to see her die, but she knew what had happened all the same. All of those people… All of them dead… Every single one of them was absolutely gone except for her… and Ben.

Looking down at him now, she felt the tiniest dash of relief, because the universe was cruel. It was so fucking cruel to have done this to them, but at least she figured every once in a while he would pop up in her life alive and well. His heart would be beating, and he wouldn’t have aged a day, and she could see proof that despite all that death, there was a light in the darkness. 

She sniffled as his sobs began to ebb into quiet, breathy cries that were muffled by her own body as they swayed in front of the fireplace. “In all these years, Ben… watching people die… It’s like I’ll be surrounded by them for a few minutes, and for a decade or so I can forget about what’s happened. I can pretend that happened to someone else. But then they start to age, or they start to notice I’m not… and I always…” Another sniffle, then she tightened the grip she had on his hair, hoping she wasn’t hurting him. “I always feel another part of me slip away into time. No matter what I do, I’m always alone, Ben…. I’m…” A lump began building anew in her throat, and she let it loose with a sharp cry. “I’m always so alone.”

This time, it was him who shook as he pulled away just enough to look her in the eyes, his red rimmed brown meeting her own crimson hazel. “You’re not alone.” And his voice had never sounded more genuine than it did in that moment. 

“Neither are you,” she told him, stroking his hair gently as she sighed. “Not as long as I’m alive, and I reckon that’ll be for a very long time.”

A laugh, then a sniffle escaped him in succession. “Rey, I… I am so sorry, for how I treated you the first few times we met,” he said, resting his forehead against the planes of her abdomen as his hands continued their threat on her dress’s life. “If I had known… I would have tried to extend my friendship much longer ago…”

She shook her head. “It’s alright, I promise. Just… just… I’m glad I have it now, and I wasn’t always the kindest to you either.”

“We did sort of stab each other the second time we met.”

They both laughed at this, then Rey knelt down to his level, taking his face in her hands. “And look how far we’ve come,” she finished for him. “All that pain, all that suffering, and you and I finally trust one another enough to say our deepest secrets, to hold one another in the night so we don’t have nightmares, and… maybe there is a silver lining to this curse. Maybe that silver lining is knowing that I’ll see you again no matter what I do… and maybe… maybe I spend more days than I should wondering if this will be the one in which I see you again.”

“Rey…”

“The point is, I miss you, and you said you miss me, too,” she told him, then she swallowed nervously. “I don’t know if we’re ready yet to actually spend time in one another’s company permanently, but… we’re almost there. It’s closer than it is far.”

Ben nodded. “I agree, but… can we discuss that in the morning? Tonight has been… tasking emotionally.”

“Of course,” Rey replied, then she stood, and offered him her hand. “But you’re staying with me tonight. Your friend can shove his opinions up his arse. It’s been too long since either of us has slept through the night, I think.”

A tiny hint of a smile crossed Ben’s face as he wiped away the last of his tears, then he took her hand and stood. “That sounds perfect,” he replied, then he let her guide him over to the bed, only letting go of her hand when she reached the side she was claiming as hers for the night. “We should probably put out the fire.”

Rey shrugged. “You’ve got hands,” she teased him, then Ben rolled his eyes at her as he turned away, and walked back over to the fireplace. She giggled as she flopped down onto the bed, missing the pain in his eyes as he grabbed a water pitcher from the mantle, and doused the flames. 

Once the fire was out, Ben made his way back over to the bed, and they both worked to undo the laces of their shoes before peeling the sheets back, and sliding in beneath them. The moment they were alone in the darkness Rey turned to him with a nervous look in her eyes, and for a moment all they could hear was the sound of their breathing before they moved to meet each other in the middle, and the rustling of the sheets was deafening.

A sigh of relief escaped her as she felt Ben’s arms wrap around her waist, and she rested a hand on his chest as her head found its place in the crook of his shoulder. They fell quiet after that, the silence of the room overwhelming as they sat there in the bed, holding one another as had become habit since their first night in Ahch To, unsure of what to say or do next. 

Eventually, Rey broke the silence. “When your friend thinks I’ve overstayed my welcome, I’m going to keep heading north,” she told him, then she swallowed her nerves. “If you think you’re ready to join me, then I’d be delighted if you followed, but if not…”

Ben shushed her, but nodded. “Let’s not talk about that tonight,” he told her. “It’s been a long day… we should sleep.”

She hummed against him. “You’re probably right,” she whispered, then as she’d done many times before, she looked up into his eyes, and added, “Good night, Ben.” Then she closed her eyes, and allowed herself to sink peacefully into sleep, completely and blissfully unaware of the inner turmoil currently waging within him as her wished her well in response. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a TIME googling the fashion for this period and well, as fun as it's been having Ben wear sexy things the last few centuries, it's time I let him be ridiculous. He's lived this long he's bound to have made a mistake or two.


	14. Pennsylvania, 1778 CE

When they woke up the next morning, both Ben and Rey knew they weren’t ready. In the aftermath of his breakdown, he admitted he needed time to clear his head, and so they spent the morning holding one another in complete and total silence. They didn’t say a single word until the time came for Rey to leave, and she left the castle without so much as a goodbye or thank you to their host.

Not that Armitage cared much. Rey didn’t matter to him, and he barely even remembered her name once she was gone. Ben wondered if he’d even bothered to commit it to memory.

Eventually, Ben left him, too. Actually, it didn’t take him long at all to leave, electing just a few years later to follow Rey up north back to the island they’d originally come from. Once he arrived on the southern coast, he couldn’t help the smile that arose to his face upon seeing the familiar beaches and cliffs he’d once called home for the first time in four hundred years. The last time he’d been to the island, Britain didn’t quite have its name, but by then it was an enormous empire slowly conquering the world piece by piece.

It was unrecognizable from the place he’d been born in, save for the familiar topography.

He didn’t stay there forever either; especially not after hearing of what had become of the new world he’d once seen and looked at in fear. People lived there now, and in fact, the population on the other side of the Atlantic was growing by the day.

Somehow, Ben wound up over there as well after much deliberation. In more than a century of being back on the island, he hadn’t found Rey. She’d disappeared into thin air, and he found himself continually perplexed by her disappearance. How was it that in 1487 she’d found him within seconds of arriving in Portugal, but he’d taken decades, and then a century and still hadn’t been able to find her?

It was an unfairness of the highest degree, and he hated it. He knew that one day he’d see her again, he could feel it in his soul, but for some god forsaken reason, that day was very, very far off. Giving up on finding her back on their home island, Ben boarded a ship bound for the other side of the Atlantic, and didn’t look back.

It was the last time he’d see Europe’s shores until the first great war broke out nearly two centuries later.

The year was 1745 when Ben arrived in America, and he watched from the bow of a ship as the city of New York began to make itself known in the distance. Even from afar, he could tell it was bustling with life, and he stared at it in awe until he finally stepped foot upon its shores to see people living their lives the same way they did on the opposite coast, except they had to deal with more humidity.

Ben didn’t give a damn about the stuffy air though, no, he was a little too entranced by how much the new world had changed since he’d last stepped foot in it. It was such a far cry from what he once knew, he wasn’t even sure it was the same place. What it was now was like what he’d known from all the many lives he’d led in Europe. It was somewhere he could make a life for himself in, and so he did.

Life in America though, Ben was quickly realizing, had its own conflicts. Not even a decade after he first arrived, the colonies — or rather, the nation that claimed them — entered into an armed conflict with the natives and another country he’d once called home — France. For the first time in centuries, he used his immortality to fight as a soldier in the British army, though he in all honesty hated both sides of the war and what they were fighting for. The sooner the war was fought and ended, the sooner life could resume as normal, and so he fought until it ended nearly another decade later.

But of course, in this new land, peace could never quite be maintained so easily. Not long after that began the revolution to free the colonies from the British, and while the small island was where Ben had been born and raised, he had no attachment to it. Part of his healing process from relearning the grief of losing his family had been moving on, and so when war broke out again, Ben pointed his gun at the men in red coats.

As this particular war progressed, it became observed by his fellow soldiers and superiors that in spite of the intensity of some of the battles he’d fought in — he’d managed to survive the slaughter at Oriskany in New York and despite having taken no less than six bullets to the chest, endured Bunker Hill a few years earlier — he managed to keep surviving. This earned him a bit of a reputation, but he didn’t mind. In times such as these, by the time any man realized he had the gift of immortality, they were seconds from death themselves.

Ben soon found himself carrying out duties as a messenger, sending crucial information between rebel camps. Each one was always amazed when their carrier emerged from the most intensely red coat covered regions completely unscathed. Of course, he usually ran into trouble on the way, but his bullet holes or stab wounds were always completely healed by the time he reached his target area. Except for the time he’d caught the wrong end of some canonfire, that had taken him a little longer to recover from since he’d lost a limb. That was the day he learned that his body was so regenerative, he could fucking regrow parts of his body — at least, he could regrow his left leg, but he had no doubt the same principle would apply to the rest of him.

It was one such mission that saw him on a collision course for a reunion with Rey when he was on a mission traveling from Fort Greene to Valley Forge in the early months of 1778. To be precise, it was the end of March heading into April, and the winter chill was only just lifting over the rolling hills and mountains composing the Pennsylvanian colony. This caused Ben to wrap himself tightly in the blue coat the continental army had given him as he rode on horseback past the banks of the Schuylkill River in the light of the setting sun.

As he came upon a sandy bank, Ben slowed his horse — a beautiful, black stallion he’d nicknamed Silencer — to a trot, and slowly swung a leg back over the creature until he was standing safely on the ground. He checked the bag he’d attached to the horse’s saddle to make sure it was still there, then upon realizing it was, he began to gently stroke his muzzle. “You look like you could use a drink,” he told it, and the horse snorted in response as if to give him an amused, you think?

He nearly laughed as he guided the horse toward the edge of the river, sighing as he caught sight of it glistening in the fading sunlight. The clouds above were tinged a special hue of pink and purple that only came with the setting of the sun, and as Ben’s horse bent down to drink, he rested an arm casually over his back as he watched the distant daytime star fade to a sliver on the horizon.

For a moment, he allowed himself to close his eyes, forgetting about everything going on around him. Just for those few precious seconds, Ben pretended the horrors of the war happened to someone else, that they were nonexistent. He allowed himself to go back to the last time he was happy, pretending that he was still in Portugal and standing in front of the window his house had that faced the ocean, and Rey was still sound asleep in the bed behind him. A smile crossed his face at the memory of all those mornings they’d spent together, and as the water of the river roared past him, he pretended it was the waves of the ocean.

All dreams, though, ended in reality, and he was brought back to his by the sound of fabric rustling in the wind. His eyes snapped open instantly, and he didn’t hesitate to grab his musket from where it was slung over his back with a strap and hold it defensively as he searched for the source of the noise.

It had sounded like the flapping of a coat, and he couldn’t tell which side the coat belonged to from its movement in the wind, but Ben wagered his odds of the coat’s owner being a friend of his weren’t good. His luck just didn’t work like that.

As he turned his gaze on an old sycamore tree, he knew instantly he was right. Dangling from a low hanging branch, he caught sight of a familiar looking red coat with white trimmings being ruffled gently by the breeze. Well, not only a coat, but a white, linen shirt and lightly colored beige pants that boasted a few grass stains and specks of blood that were likely obtained from a heated but not very intense battle. Ben’s eyebrows furrowed, then he looked between the coat and the river, and realized where the owner of the clothing had gone.

His eyes went wide as he approached the river, stepping past his still drinking horse to bend over the water’s edge. He winced as he stuck two fingers inside the river’s frigid water, and wondered what sort of mad man would bathe in waters that looked as if they were going to ice over at any minute.

Mad or not, the man was an enemy, and Ben raised his musket to the water, searching for signs that the mysterious man in the red coat was going to surface anytime soon, but finding none. Worry filled him as he watched the blue waters continue to ripple in the dying sunlight. Had the soldier drowned in his attempt to bathe? Was his body now drifting down the currents naked as the day he was born to either sink to the depths or be found tragically by soldiers camping on the river’s banks? Ben had no way of knowing, and he reached up a hand to remove his hat out of respect for the dead man, when suddenly he caught sight of movement along the water’s surface.

His mystery soldier wasn’t dead.

Ben raised his musket with renewed vigor, aiming it carefully at the head that had started to poke its way out of the water, catching it in his line of sight as his finger slipped toward the trigger. A grimace grew on his face, since he loathed taking a life every time he had to do it, but he knew this would be necessary. One fewer man in red meant the war ended that much more quickly, and thus his finger began to press the trigger, and he stiffened his posture as he prepared for the kickback from his weapon, ready to fire at any second until —

The soldier stood from the water, revealing a silhouette that was undoubtedly feminine. Ben lowered his gun slightly as he took in the sight of the sunset’s rays shining off long, brown hair, and found himself hypnotized as that same light sparkled on freckled cheeks, glistened down a long throat and a well outlined collar bone before it shone off of a pair of small but rounded breasts. His jaw fell slack as he took in the sight of her, and while she boasted a slightly more boyish form, he found himself appreciative it. Especially of the well toned muscles of her arms as her fingers reached back to comb through her hair, lifting her chest to expose an equally well-defined abdomen that faded into the blue color of the water, preventing him from seeing anything else as he all but dropped his gun from shock.

He didn’t even wonder what the hell a woman like that was doing there between the two well known patriot forts as he took her in, eyes drifting up to her face and watching her pink lips part into a smile as she watched the sun begin its final descent over the horizon, and traced little shapes in the surface of the flowing water with her fingers. Wait… he’d seen those fingers before. He knew those hands. He’d kissed them in a port in Venice and held them through a restless night in Paris as well as on the streets of Ahch To in Portugal.

Staggering backwards, he took in the naked woman’s face again, and realized why the red coat’s uniform hung from the tree. It belonged to her, the woman who stood the best chance of disguising herself as a man, who might actually survive a war like this in one piece. It belonged to Rey.

“Shit,” he breathed, his free hand finding purchase on his horse to keep himself steady as he tried to keep his eyes just about anywhere but her distant but very much visible dusty pink nipples as she set her arms back down by her side. This was not good. He was out in the open, she’d spot him at any minute no matter what he did unless she dove down beneath the water again before she looked toward the shore.

Unfortunately for him, luck was almost never on his side, and just moments after he’d first spotted her, Rey turned her head in his direction, and the two of them stood there completely frozen under one another’s gaze. He wondered for a moment if she recognized him, then as she crossed her arms over her breasts, he watched her cheeks flush pink as she peered at him through the rays of sunlight. “Ben?” she asked incredulously.

Feeling thoroughly as though he’d witnessed something he shouldn’t have, he prayed to all the gods he didn’t believe in that he hadn’t flushed a spectacular shade of red like she had. “Hello, Rey,” he replied, then he turned away from the river. “Is that your uniform?”

A faint sloshing of water began to ring in his ears, drawing closer to him as time passed and he realized she was getting out of the water. Ben’s heart only continued racing in his chest as he realized she’d be walking past him completely nude, and he was fairly certain that even if he didn’t see it, that knowledge would be the death of him. He was still reeling from seeing just her bare upper torso a few seconds earlier.

“It is,” she said, then he caught a hint of disappointment in her voice as she continued. “I see we’re wearing opposing colors.”

“I figured it had been too long since we fought against one another,” he replied, then he felt sorrow leaking into his own words as he realized what the color of her uniform meant. She was the enemy again, and she was fighting to keep the country he’d sided with trapped under British rule, trapped away from the liberty he and so many other men were trying desperately to achieve.

Rey scoffed. “Indeed, but let’s wait until I’m fully dressed before we discuss the mistakes of your colors, shall we?”

“The mistakes of my colors?”

“Not until I’m dressed,” she said, then he heard the padding of feet on sand, and he turned himself in the opposite direction of the sycamore tree, setting his musket over his shoulder once more. “Thank you.”

“It’s no problem,” he replied, then he shook his head. “I’m sorry, this is… this is not how I wanted us to reunite.”

“Nor I.”

“I tried to find you, you know,” he admitted, placing his hands on his horse’s saddle as the creature at long last removed its muzzle from the water. “In Britain. I spent a century trying to figure out where you were, but I never saw you. I gave up my search thirty years ago to come here… I can’t believe I found you again.”

The fabric hanging on the sycamore’s branches rustled again in protest as she yanked it off the branch, and then he heard the tell tale grunt of a man struggling to get into his — or in Rey’s case, woman and her — trousers while sopping wet. He snickered quietly to himself as he looked up at the sky, finding comfort in watching the colorful clouds pass overhead as he waited for her to dress. “Rey… how the hell did you end up here?”

“I’ll answer that when I’m dressed, Ben, I told you,” she reminded him, then he heard more fabric rustling.

“Right, sorry.”

He then kept his eyes trained firmly forward, waiting until she cleared her throat before he turned around, and his heart broke a little inside at the sight of her in the uniform of the enemy he was fighting. Rey was a soldier again, just like he was, but she was fighting for a people who wanted to make the lives of their colonists miserable from his perspective, and given all the sins of the British, he couldn’t help feeling a little surge of anger begin to swell within him. It warred passionately with the side of him that had started to fall for her for a moment before he finally shook his head at her. “You’re a redcoat?”

“I’m just trying to help end the war,” she explained, stepping forward and reaching out a hand as if to touch him even though she was still a ways away. “It doesn’t matter.”

Ben held up a hand to dismiss her attempt to touch him, then he scoffed. “Yes it fucking does, Rey,” he told her, gesturing to the blue of his own coat. “By helping them… you’re against me… you’re against what I stand for… You fight for an enemy that only wants this land so that they can have the biggest empire in the world. They don’t care about the people… Rey…” At this, it was he who stepped forward, feeling tempted to reach out and touch her. “Why?”

Her jaw opened and closed for a few seconds as she tried to formulate a response, then she shrugged. “Because I had a decent life before all this started, then the rebellion began, and… I was just trying to bring the conflict to an end, but… it’s been dragging on for half a decade now, and I’m tired.”

“And you think I’m not?”

“I never said that,” she growled, stomping forward at that to prod a finger into his chest, forcing him to take a step backward and nearly collide with his horse. “Don’t put words in my mouth, Ben.”

Stepping away from where she’d cornered him, Ben walked further up the beach away from the river, grasping the reins of his stallion as he moved, fully prepared to walk away from her and find her again in another century when she’d seen sense. Out of all the things the universe had thrown at them, this was amongst the most cruel in terms of their relationship. They’d just started to heal, had just begun to truly enjoy their friendship, and he was just realizing that he had feelings for her that ran deeper than just calling her a dear friend… and this happened.

Centuries of buildup were knocked down a few bricks by the color of a military coat.

“I’m just trying to do what I think is right, same as you,” she said after a while, and he heard her walk up behind him a few steps before she stopped no more than five feet away. “At least I’m not backing the side that started all this.”

He turned around, his entire body tense with rage as he faced her, catching a fiery anger in her hazel eyes. “Excuse me?”

“The rebellion you’re backing… it’s what started all this,” she explained. “All these years of bloodshed… they’re on you.”

“You think the people rebelled because they felt like stirring up chaos?”

“I think they didn’t realize the consequences of their actions before they decided to act.”

Ben shook his head in disappointment. “Unbelievable,” he muttered bitterly, then he gestured between them. “The first time we fought, you loathed me because I backed an army that was raiding your homeland, and now you’re making the exact same mistake I did.” He almost laughed as he took another step toward her, standing close enough that she had to tilt her head up to see his eyes. “I suppose history has a funny way of repeating itself.”

She raised a curious eyebrow. “What are you saying? Are you proposing we fight again, Ben?”

“No, no… It’d be useless to fight. All we’d do is hurt each other until we decided we’d had enough, and neither of us would be dead. We are and always have been two adversaries who hadn’t a hope of ever defeating one another.”

Rey paused at this, and he suddenly noticed the tears threatening to spill from her eyes as she looked up at him, then she gripped the lapel of her coat with one hand as she braced herself against what she was going to say next. “You’re right…”

He felt the urge to reach out and touch her more strongly than ever as he replied with, “How did you get here anyway?”

“After I found nothing on our origins… I started trying to find you, too,” she admitted, then she sighed. “I hadn’t had any luck trying to find you through Britain, so I immigrated here twenty years ago. I was beginning to give up hope that I’d see you again… Until now.”

Ben’s jaw fell slack, lips parting ever so slightly as he realized that she’d been looking for him, too. In that moment, he had a thought of surging forward and take her back into his arms like he had back in Paris, but he didn’t. He was still too angry at her for taking up arms against the people he was trying to protect, too outraged by the implications of the coat she wore to allow himself that potential happiness.

After all, how happy could she make him if she was a traitor to his country?

“Well, you found me,” he growled, stepping closer to her. “You just found me a little too late.”

Rey scoffed. “So what, then? We’ve already established it’d be useless to fight. Ben, all we’d do is fight again and wound each other. Is that what you want? To turn your coat as red as mine?” she asked, then she was in his space, pressing her hands against his chest and shoving him backwards. He stumbled on his feet, but didn’t fall as he stared at her in shock, and she continued advancing on him. “Because we could go for hours if you want, or even days, weeks — months! But it won’t make a difference. We can keep going until we’re both covered in our own blood… we’ll never be able to win.”

Her voice broke on that last word, and she stepped back as a tear fell onto her cheek, and Ben felt a lump begin to develop in his own throat as he watched her, realizing she was entirely too correct. He shook his head. “No… I don’t want that… but we can’t ignore it,” he said. “This changes things.”

Rey nodded as she blinked another tear from her eye. “I agree… so what then? We go our separate ways? Pretend we never saw each other and head back to camp?”

“We could.” His haze fell on the horizon, where the sun had slipped behind a distant mountain to the west, and the sky began to grow dark the further east he looked. “But it’s getting a bit late for that. We ought to make camp and settle this in the morning.”

“Please, it’s not as though either of us is in any true danger in the dark.”

“Maybe not, but as angry as I am at you, I’d like to find out what the last century was like on your end,” he said, stepping forward to offer her his hand. “I want to know how we managed to miss each other until it was too late.”

“Ben…” She looked at his hand hesitantly, and he recalled a night centuries ago when she’d done the same thing while lying in his bed in their little house on the Portuguese coast. Back then, she’d pretended to consider his proposal and immediately run from him, but now…? Three centuries later, she actually took his hand, and shook it as if they were greeting one another. “Okay.”

“We can part ways in the morning if we both still wish, and… given the anger I can see in your eyes I suspect we will, but let’s give ourselves tonight.” He rested his other hand on her arm. “One more night before we go back to fighting one another.” At that last sentence, it was his voice that waivered, and Ben watched through misty eyes as hers spilled more tears, and she bowed her head in agreement.

“Alright,” she said, then she straightened herself. “I left my musket by the sycamore, I’ll grab it, then… follow me… I’ve set up a tent further into the woods, we can stay there for the night, if that’s fine with you?”

“It is.”

“Good, then let’s go… I don’t want to risk anyone seeing us together, it’ll raise too many questions.” With that, Rey walked back over to the sycamore, and Ben grabbed hold of Silencer’s reins before he followed after her, and the two began a long trek through the northern woods.

A silence settled over them both as they walked, but Ben kept his eyes trained firmly on Rey’s back the whole time, watching as she climbed over roots and ducked under branches ahead of him and his horse. She’d always been quick and nimble, but he’d never seen her skills at hiding more prominently on display than that night when they made their way through the Pennsylvania woods, the year’s first cicadas covering their footfalls as they went. She didn’t make a god damn sound the whole time, not until he started a conversation ten minutes into the walk.

“Would you rather we made this journey on horseback instead?” he asked.

“Why would we?”

“Well, it’d be faster.”

“It’s not as if we don’t have time.”

“Maybe, but our comrades don’t,” he replied, then he grunted as he tripped over a raised tree root. “I’m just saying, it’d be a good idea for you to hop on in front of me and point the way.”

“What? And have your cock pressing up against my ass for the next few minutes? No thank you,” she told him, then she brushed a series of low hanging branches aside to allow him and Silencer passage. “We’re almost there.”

Ben’s cheeks flushed at that, but he dropped the subject immediately, not saying another word until they finally came upon a tent sandwiched between two trees five more minutes after that. The campsite was small, made to be hidden, and fully out of sight from any known trails soldiers from either army tended to take. It also boasted a small fire pit Rey had seemingly dug out, the wood inside blackened by whatever fire she’d been burning before she’d come to the river to bathe. For one person, it looked perfect, but to hold them both?

They were going to have to get even closer than usual that night, and not just as they slept.

Heart already racing in his chest, Ben led Silencer over to another nearby tree, and tied his reins to one of the branches. Hopefully that would do to keep him steady for the night, otherwise the patriot army would be down another horse, and they couldn’t afford to lose their resources. Not at a time like this.

Thinking of his army though gave him a renewed feeling of anger as he looked at Rey, watching with a glare in his eyes as she took two stones from the ground near the fire pit, and struck them together until sparks fell onto the wood below. A blaze soon erupted from the flammable logs, though it was weak from a majority of them having been burnt before. His companion looked at the flames with a frown, then she turned her gaze on Ben. “Help me gather more wood? We’re going to need a bigger fire if we want to keep warm while we talk.”

Ben didn’t acknowledge her words, but he did start to gather more wood, using branches and sticks he’d found to add to the fire, watching it grow until she instructed him to stop, then he tossed his last chunk of wood into the pit, and they stared at one another for a moment. Rey took in a deep breath, then she gestured to the ground. “Sit with me.”

Keeping eye contact the entire time, the two of them lowered themselves into sitting positions on adjacent sides of the fire in near perfect unison. Ben took off his hat, then set it down on the ground, breathing slowly as he looked at her to calm his heart as it pounded in his chest at the thought that she looked absolutely beautiful in the firelight. For a split second, he thought about telling her so, but then he decided against it, realizing the consequences of such an action and that at the moment they were enemies again. It wouldn’t do him any good to make advances toward her.

“So… where did you go first?” he asked instead, electing to spark the investigation into just how the hell they’d missed each other even though they’d spent more than a century searching.

“What do you mean?”

“On the island… where’d you go?” He cleared his throat. “I’m just trying to figure out how we were both looking for each other and I still managed not to see you until you were fighting for my enemy.”

She shifted where she sat, then she took in a deep breath. “I arrived near the formation you used to live in. The one where we fought in the waves?”

“I remember,” he assured her. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forget.”

“Neither will I.” Rey reached for the buttons of her coat, clasping one together as a breeze blew past them, forcing the flames of their fire to dance in the wind while they shivered. That was the downside to springtime nightfall; the air still maintained a chill that reminded one of the depths of winter, making sure people knew that one day the ice and cold would be back, and they weren’t going to be forgotten any time soon.

“Where’d you go after that?”

“I tried to find the earliest place I could remember living in,” she explained, then he watched more tears rise to her eyes, and she sniffles in time with the crackling of the flames. “The village where we met… Jakku? But it was gone. I went to that exact hill, and it was like we’d never even been there. There was nothing where my old home used to be…” She let tears roll onto her cheeks. “It was all gone… And it just… it reminded me of how old I am… I’m so fucking old, I’ve seen so much… I’ve outlived entire cities and empires. They’ve all crumbled to dust… but I’ve lived…”

Somehow, Ben’s hand found it’s way onto her shoulder, and as they locked eyes, wet, fat tears of his own streamed down his face as he tried to formulate some sort of response to that. He felt the exact same way after all, since he suspected they’d been alive for almost the same amount of time. They’d known one another for seven hundred years now, and they’d seen more than most people could ever comprehend. When the moments came for them to realize this… it only grew more heartbreaking each time.

“Rey... I’m so sorry,” he replied, then she sniffled again, and he shifted closer to her, reaching up with his free hand to toss his hat off to the side as he wrapped his arm around her shoulders, and pulled her close to hold her while she grieved.

“It was all nothing… even the village where we fought another century later… it was gone…” She wrapped a red sleeved arm around his shoulders, returning his embrace as she sighed. “So I gave up on trying to figure out our past… and figured I’d find you instead… see if you were ready to try and figure out a way for us to stop splitting up every time we saw each other.” Her eyes fell on the blue of his coat once again. “But I suppose the universe still wants us to wait for another day.”

Ben blinked more tears from his eyes as he rested his chin over the top of her head, wondering if she could feel them where they fell into her dark hair. “I’m afraid so…” he said, then he frowned as another, darker thought came into his head. “Rey… if we have to face one another on the battlefield…”

She shook her head. “Don’t say that now… Don’t talk about the war… all we’ll do is argue.”

“You’re right,” he said, then he glanced at the fire as he wiped the tears from his eyes with his spare hand. They fell quiet for another minute after that, then he changed the subject again as they continued to hold each other tightly. “I left Paris a little while after you did… at the time I thought I was ready to find you and… and ask you to join me somewhere, but… I guess that changes now, too.”

“I guess it does,” she whispered, and the sound of her voice damn near broke his heart.

Unsure of how to respond again, he looked up to the sky, catching sight of the stars between the glowing orange embers of their fire as they rose up to join them in the midnight blue. A soft little laugh escaped him then, and when Rey tilted her head up to give him a strange look, he moved back slightly, and pointed with his free hand to the stars. “We’ve been saying everything changes… but those don’t… They’re the same every time I look up.” He pointed up to the sky. “The stars are constant.”

“Like us,” she replied, then they both gave a half-hearted laugh as they craned their necks toward the sky. “The only things I can rely on to always exist are you and the stars.”

“And the Earth.”

“That too, I suppose, but it changes its face too often for me to count it,” she said, then she pointed a finger up. “See those three there? Orion’s belt… It’s a simple constellation… but… it’s my favorite.”

Ben couldn’t help the smile that bloomed on his face in response. “I like that one, too.” He turned his eyes on her, feeling surprised when he saw she was already looking at him. “It’s always there, every time I look up in the sky.”

“It never moves.” Rey shifted the hand she had on his shoulder, letting it rest in the center of his broad back, red gliding over blue as she grinned at him. “It’ll always be there, no matter what we do… and so will we. Eventually, I’ll forgive you, and you’ll forgive me… and we will move on…”

“And one day we’ll be friends again?” he asked, then she noticeably stiffened, but nodded.

“Yeah, friends… like always,” she said slowly, then she removed her hand from him entirely. “We should be getting to sleep. I’m sure your camp is expecting you early tomorrow. I don’t want to make your side suspicious with the delay.”

Ben shifted away from her as well, and ran a hand awkwardly through his own hair. “Right… I… right… we should… yes, sleep sounds good,” he replied, then he stood up, and offered her his hand. “I don’t suppose you have any water to douse this with?”

“Yeah, yeah, I do,” she replied, then she walked over to the tent, scurrying away from him before she was even finished speaking. He watched as she bent down inside of it, then pulled out a sizeable container of water in the form of an old, wooden bucket — likely full of water from the nearby river — and tossed it over the flames without another word.

Darkness shrouded them immediately, the warmth of the orange and yellow light giving way to the cold of the evening as they stood there, eyes flickering between each other and the tent that Ben was being reminded again was very, very small. In the absence of the fire, the sound of the roaring cicadas filled their ears once more, and he swallowed dryly as nerves began to strike him at the thought of sharing the very little space with her. He wasn’t sure why he was so nervous, they’d shared beds before many, many times, but for some reason, he could hear his pulse in his ears as he began to feel warm in spite of the cold.

Rey moved to get in the tent first, and he watched through eyes that were still adjusting to the light change as she removed her red coat, leaving herself in the loose, white linen shirt, trousers, and suspenders before she crawled inside. He counted to three in his head, then he followed suit, removing his blue coat before he too wandered into the tent, where she’d laid down a single blanket to provide a semblance of a mattress. It made sense in his mind; they were soldiers, and they weren’t exactly the highest ranking officers. For them to have even this was a stroke of luck and a miracle.

His companion shook out her coat above her, then spread it over her body like a blanket as far as it would go before patting the tiny amount of space next to her. “Come in.”

It was moments like these where Ben was made very much aware of his massive height. He was tall and broad, the kind of body type that most definitely did not suit the tent he was attempting to crawl into, but he made his way inside nonetheless. Their eyes met as he settled down beside her, and sprawled his own coat over himself as she watched him, the sound of their breathing somehow louder than that of the creatures stalking the woods outside as they finally settled in beside one another. Tension built between them, and it continued to build until at last he opened his arms, and she shifted until he was able to wrap her in them.

At least, he wrapped her in one. With the other hand, he reached down to shift his coat so that it was spread over their legs and feet, then adjusted hers so that it covered their upper bodies, their opposing colors colliding somewhere over his hips and her waist. Once that was done, Ben laid back, and exhaled blissfully as she shifted so that she was resting her head over his chest while he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and his other hand found its final resting place over her waist.

In spite of the cold that had settled into the night air, Ben had never felt warmer.

“You think we still won’t have nightmares even though we’re at war?” Rey asked softly, then he laughed weakly in the form of a short, sharp exhale.

“I don’t know,” he replied, then he turned to look at her, finding the colors that made up hazel still staring at him in the dark. “Close your eyes, and we’ll find out.”

She managed a giggle at that, then he watched her close her eyes, and under his gaze, her breathing grew even, and her whole body relaxed into his as sleep overtook her minutes later. Once she was out, Ben gently began to stroke her shoulder with his thumb, then he let out a deep breath. “Goodnight, Rey,” he told her, then he turned his eyes on the roof of the tent, and laid awake for a few more minutes before he too surrendered to sleep’s clutches, falling deeply into a state of unconsciousness as their warmth circulated between them.

That night, in spite of the war and all its horrors, in spite of all they’d seen and lost, Ben didn’t have a single nightmare as he slept beside Rey in that shitty little tent in the Pennsylvania woods.


	15. Pennsylvania, 1778 CE

Their dreams were nightmare free that night, but Rey’s were full of something else entirely. In her dreams, she woke up to the sound of the cicadas singing outside their tent, screaming as the night grew darker around them, but she didn’t pay them any mind... _All she could help but notice almost the moment she thought she was awake was that Ben was now holding her from behind. One arm encircled her waist, and the other was serving as her pillow, and her coat had half fallen from their shoulders but thanks to him she was now impossibly warm._

_Still, the warmth wasn’t enough to distract her from the fact that she could feel his erection pressing into her ass. Whether or not that was the dream or a sensation she could feel in reality leaking into her subconscious, she couldn’t tell, but she knew that she felt something there, and it felt… it felt good._

_It shouldn’t have felt good, she thought, but fuck, it did. When was the last time she’d felt the touch of another human being beyond just lying with Ben that night? It had been… fuck… it had been more than a century._

_She hadn’t lain with another person since before the last night she’d spent with Ben in Paris, and that had been in 1628. It had been a hundred and fifty years since she’d been touched, and only a slightly smaller chunk of time since the last time she’d allowed herself the pleasure of her own hand._

_Ben shifted in his sleep, and she moaned out loud as his cock brushed against her clothed entrance, then she covered her mouth as she waited patiently to see whether or not he’d wake up. Several heart stopping seconds passed before she felt him tense beside her, and then relax. “Are you alright?”_

_“I’m fine,” she said hurriedly, then she stifled another moan as he shifted his hips again, but a tiny squeak of a noise still managed to get loose. “Really.”_

_A soft gasp escaped him as she subtly shifted her hips away from his, then she felt the hand that rested around her waist press against her lower abdomen at the waistline of her trousers. “Rey… I heard that sound…”_

_“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to, it’s just been a while for me, and—”_

_“Shh,” he breathed, then she felt his hand slowly shift beneath her waistline, ignoring the strain of her suspenders as he continued whispering in her ear. “It’s been a while for me, too…”_

_“Ben…”_

_“Rey… Can I touch you?” he whispered directly into her ear, his breath ghosting over it, causing chills to run down her spine in spite of the warmth radiating off of him._

_Her own breath shuddered as it left her, and she let her hips fall back against his, then she nodded. “Yes, god yes…” She took his hand in her own, her fingers covering Ben’s as she led his hand beneath the waistline of her stiff trousers, their gasps for air covered by the roar of the cicadas outside as their hands slid closer and closer to the apex of her thighs._

_“You’re going to have to be quiet,” Ben told her as his fingers finally brushed over her clit, causing a small groan to leave her body involuntarily._

_Somehow gathering the ability to speak, Rey smiled into the darkness. “So are you,” she replied as she ground her ass against his erection. This time it was him who made a noise that was loud enough to alert any passing foes which would try to attack them, regardless of what they were doing in the tent._

_He laughed weakly, then he buried his face in her shoulder, and she could feel how hot his breath was as he began to circle her clit with his fingers, making her want to cry out in his arms from how good it felt, but instead, she simply opened her mouth in a quiet scream. With his other hand, Ben slowly let his fingers cover her mouth, but he didn’t press down. It was an encouragement rather than a forceful command to stay quiet, and somehow, it only aroused her further._

Fuck, _it really had been too long. All he’d done was touch her for a few seconds and she felt like she was going to come at any minute. She swore against his hand as he slipped his fingers down further until one was pressing into her entrance while his thumb resumed its work on her clit, and as he pushed that first finger inside of her, his hand muffled the cry that came out of her mouth, stifling it beneath his flesh and the cicadas._

 _In response, Rey pressed herself further against him, ensuring that she was able to work him towards his orgasm as he did the same to her. A quiet sound, almost like a whimper vibrated against her skin through the linen of her shirt, and she nearly came from hearing that alone. “Fuck, right there,” she whispered, causing him to briefly remove his hand from her mouth as he sheathed another finger inside of her, reaching a spot that nearly drove her insane when he touched her there. “_ Fuck! _Ben, I’m gonna… I’m gonna come.”_

_He shifted his hips against her once more, then she felt him nod against her. “Me too,” he whispered, then he began to rub his thumb against her clit faster, driving her close to the edge as they ground against each other, their breathing the only sound in the tent save for the screeching of the creatures on the outside. If there were other men prowling the woods, they weren’t going to hear it. They were past the point of being vocal. Past the point of no return. Both of them were about to come apart in those woods, in that tent, and they were going to do it together._

_It felt like everything around them was building to a crescendo, as if the cicadas outside, their own breathing, and their own quiet little whispered swears were getting louder and louder until suddenly—_

Rey’s eyes snapped open to the sound of distant gunfire, and she and Ben both jolted awake at the sound, but neither seemed to process what it was. They wouldn’t figure it out for another several minutes, but it was just loud enough to awaken them, even if they had yet to figure out what it was. Her breathing grew heavy as she recalled the events of her dream, both relieved and disappointed that they weren’t real… On the one hand, she wasn’t sure she was ready to face the implications of being with Ben like that, but on the other… _fuck,_ she still hadn’t come in nearly a century.

“Did you hear something?” Ben asked, his voice shrouded in sleep, but still deep enough that it sent more of those blasted shivers down her spine in spite of the warmth she could still feel. Apparently she hadn’t dreamt their new position at all, and the only thing that wasn’t real was his erection pressing up against her ass.

Disappointment swelled within her for some reason that that wasn’t real, but instead of voicing that out loud, she shook her head. “No, not at all…” she replied, then she looked around the walls of their tent, observing the tiny pinpricks of light that came in through the early morning dawn. “Good morning.”

Ben almost laughed. “Good morning,” he replied, then she smiled as sled as one of his hands found hers where it rested in front of her waist, and he soon laced their fingers together like it was nothing. He did it so casually, as if it were something friends did all the time, and with them, that tended to be true, but the only other people Rey did it with were ones she’d — _oh fuck._

Her breathing grew unsteady as she came to the realization that while she’d thought she was simply _developing_ feelings for Ben up until that point, she already was in head over heels. What she felt for him was something she’d only caught glimpses of with others, something she’d seen in the eyes of people she’d watched over the centuries as they confessed it due to the pressure of their fleeting lifespans. It wasn’t something she’d ever experienced strongly, and now that she was… she didn’t know what to do with it. All she knew was that she was falling in love with the man resting behind her, with her only true friend, and that was the most terrifying thought she’d ever experienced.

Rey wanted to run, wanted to haul ass away from the tent and take the time to hide away from these feelings for another century until she got rid of them, then she could see him again. Oh, sure, they’d argue, they’d piss and moan, but eventually they’d go back to being friends, wouldn’t they? They were already planning to split up after this, but… now she felt less motivated. Her mind was in the separation, but her heart?

Her heart wanted to stay and ask him to hold her in that tent forever, ignoring the war around them. It wanted him to touch her like he had in the dream, to make her feel alive again after so long —

“I know I’m supposed to be angry with you…” Ben said after a while, his deep, low voice causing her to shudder slightly in his arms. She wondered if he noticed. “But I… I know that in another century we won’t care about this anymore…”

“Ben…”

“Let me finish…” He took in a deep breath. “I have a pen, ink, and paper, and… nowadays it’s possible to send letters between the camps…” She heard him pause, swallowing his nerves as he gripped her hand a little more tightly. “I… I’m going to give you my information… I want… I want you to write to me, and I’ll write to you in turn. Maybe this way when we’re finally ready to see each other again… we can.” He sighed. “We can meet the moment we’re ready.”

She thought about it for a moment. It sounded like a wonderful idea, if she were being honest, and maybe if she felt like she had Ben by her side every day of the war, it would be less painful, and the whole thing would pass more quickly than she could’ve anticipated. Sure, she’d be reminded of her feelings for him constantly, but…

Maybe that didn’t have to be such a bad thing.

“Alright…” she replied, then she laughed slightly. “I’ll do it.”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s write to each other.” She ran her thumb over his, then she grinned openly even though he couldn’t see it. “We’ll send one another letters… pray we don’t get caught… we’ll have to make up some sort of lie for why we know each other… and never mention our… condition.”

She felt him nod behind her. “Of course… but what should we say? Who are we to one another?” He thought for a moment, and she could see him picturing all of the things that they could be. “Old friends whose families were split up by the war?”

“I like that one.” She turned slightly in their odd sort of embrace so that she could see him, feeling her heart race when she realized how close his face was to hers. For a moment, she became lost in studying him, first in his eyes — dark brown with tiny flecks of gold in some places, reflected by the early morning light that came through the tent — then in the beauty marks that dotted his skin. Rey traced constellations in them for a moment with her own eyes, then her gaze fell down to his full lips, and somehow she found the words to say what she was thinking next. “We’re old friends… it suits us, really.”

“It does…” he replied, then she watched as his lower lip trembled slightly, fighting back a groan as she watched him take his lower lip between his teeth for a split second before releasing it. “We’re old friends just checking in on one another during a trying time…” He adjusted the hand holding hers, then he smiled down at her, those full lips parting in a way that had her already racing heart pounding in her ears. “I’m… I’m glad I’ll have you to get me through this.”

Rey turned fully onto her back, their hands resting on her stomach as she allowed herself to look at him better, noticing his eyes becoming progressively more hooded as they spoke, but not because he was tired… No… He was… _Shit,_ he was looking at her lips. “I’m glad I’ll have you to get me through this, too.” Her voice was barely a whisper, and despite being the speaker, she almost didn’t hear her own words.

For a moment, all they could hear was the sound of their breathing, both of them shuddering with every exhale as their eyes drifted to the exact same place, lying completely frozen in this moment of before. Something was about to happen there, and all along the tide had been shifting between them, drifting between different highs and lows, but it had never been further up the beach than it was at that moment, pulled by the gravity of what was about to happen.

Centuries upon centuries had passed since they’d first met in a market, and if she’d been told then that she’d wind up here, lying by Ben’s side with their hands entwined and fairly certain he was about to kiss her, she would’ve fucking laughed. But now… now she was perfectly content with that prospect, and her racing heart pounded loudly enough she wondered if he could hear it, too, if he could tell just how nervous and excited she was as a world of emotions warred within her.

Anticipation was rife in the air, and Rey’s breathing grew ragged as Ben shifted, and she watched as he slowly, gently began to lean toward her. He turned slightly on his shoulder as he moved, his body partially covering hers, pressing her into the ground in a delicious, sweet pressure that reminded her somewhat of her dream, then he tightened his grip on her hand, and she found herself leaning up to try and meet him somewhere in the middle.

They drifted closer and closer, pulled as if drawn magnetically like the needle of a compass as they leaned in until they were merely an inch apart, and Rey could feel Ben’s breath ghosting over hers as she let her eyes slowly flicker shut. In spite of how scared she’d been for this very thing just minutes ago, she now was ready, and as she prepared to close that final, little gap between them, she knew she’d be —

Whatever train that thought was going down derailed immediately with the sound of another, distant gunshot, and Rey’s eyes sprang open as Ben rushed off of her, pushing himself into a sitting position while both of them panted lightly from the shock of such a serious moment being interrupted. As soon as it wore off, they both stared in the direction it had come from, and he hurriedly crawled out of the tent, throwing on that blue coat of his as he went.

Rey groaned as she followed him, grabbing her red one while she prayed it was just some fool hunting for game out in the woods. Of course, her prayers were unlikely to be answered. It was wartime, and they sat between two major rebel forts. The chances of them getting out of this without encountering some sort of enemy were abysmal at best. She didn’t want to think of what they were at worst.

On her way out, Rey grabbed hold of her musket, preparing to fire it at a moments notice if she saw an adversary, which at the moment, was anyone and everyone. If anyone saw her with Ben and his blue coat… she couldn’t allow them to live to tell the tale. Their secrets — every single one of them — had to stay a secret.

With that in mind, she followed Ben out into the woods, standing with her back to his as they both pointed their weapons away from their little campsite. The woods around them grew deadly quiet and rife with tension, a far cry from the peace they’d experienced in the tent that morning — or rather, from the moment they’d nearly experienced together, from the kiss they’d almost shared in the early morning light.

Around them, the sun was still rising, coral colored rays shining on their faces as they turned back to back to scope out their surroundings, but still they saw nothing. After several minutes on end of circling one another, they stepped away, and Rey turned to face Ben. “It might be far off…” she said, then she shook her head, and pointed to the horse that was still resting by the tree he’d tied his reins to. “Ben, you should run. You’re nearly at Valley Forge, and it’s better they don’t catch us together.”

Ben scoffed. “What?” His voice rose several pitches with disbelief. “No… No, not yet… I still have to… I have to tell you where to send your letters. And who to send them to.” Without another word, he rushed over to the horse, stroking the creature briefly before he began sifting through a satchel attached to the side of it.

“Who to send them to?” she asked, watching as he shifted through his things, searching through them with increasing desperation until he found what he was looking for. “I know exactly who I’m sending them to.”

“I’ve got a name…” he explained, then he coughed as he produced a tin of ink, a little quill, and a piece of parchment that appeared to already have something written on it, but he simply tore off the untouched portion, and shoved the rest back in the satchel. “When I started running these missions… I couldn’t just hide as Ben anymore. I had to make something up.” He spread the piece of paper out on the horse’s saddle, and hurriedly dipped the pen in the ink, beginning to write everything he thought she’d need to know in a rushed, but beautiful script.

“What’d you tell them?”

“My first name… I went with the long version of my name… decided to call myself Benjamin…” He took a deep breath as he continued writing. “But I needed a surname… Had to come up with one on the spot when my General asked.” A smile crossed his face, then, and he paused his writing to look up at her. “Thought I’d be a smart ass, you see, since I was completely alone. I had — _have_ — no friends, no family… no attachments… called myself Solo.”

Were it not for the severity of the moment, Rey would’ve laughed, but she was too worried about someone coming through the trees at any moment to catch them, and so she kept her guard up and her musket held high while she waited for him to finish writing. “So you’re Ben Solo, then?”

“Yeah,” he replied, then he finished his writing, and hurriedly shoved all of his supplies back into the satchel before he strode over to her again, folding up the parchment as he went. She watched as he held it out to her, breathing harder than he probably should’ve been as he waited for her to take it from him.

“That’s a silly name.” She grinned as she took it from his hand, shoving it into the pocket of her trousers before she lowered her musket, and tucked it beneath her arm much the same way he was doing. “I suppose this is where we part, then?”

Ben looked at her hesitantly, then he nodded. “I guess so,” he muttered, holding out his hand to Rey. “Until next time?”

She opened her mouth to reply, but then another gunshot rang out, and suddenly an overwhelming, blinding, and very familiar pain wrenched through her gut. A sharp cry left her lips as she pressed a hand over her wound, wielding her weapon with the other as she searched for her assailant. It took all her strength not to collapse as Ben did the same, turning in the direction the shot had come from while he stood protectively in front of her.

Her pain washed over her in waves as she watched him hold his weapon securely with both hands, his grip the polar opposite of her shaky, unsteady single hand grip. “Are you okay?”

No, no she wasn’t. She would be in just a few minutes, but for now… she had two holes where the bullet had sliced through her, luckily not embedding itself within her body. She’d had to keep wounds open to dig shrapnel out of parts of herself before, and it wasn’t pretty. It was hours of agonizing, painful torture, even with a bit of whiskey to numb her mind and body. With every fiber of her being, she prayed she never had to do it again, but she had a bad feeling that would be unlikely.

“I’m fine,” she grunted, already feeling the pain grow dull even as her linen shirt grew wet from the crimson spreading over her abdomen. _Great._ She’d need another bath later — one that would hopefully be unseen by another’s eye, since she was still reeling from knowing that Ben had seen her naked — but that didn’t matter. What did was finding the person who’d fired upon her, and figuring out if they even knew they’d shot someone or if it was a stray bullet.

“Okay,” Ben replied, then he held his musket at nearly eye level, and raised his voice when he spoke again. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”

“ _Are you mad?”_ Rey hissed, surging forward to grab him by the shoulder, and turn him around so that he was facing her. She winced visibly as she did so, her still healing abdomen sending a fresh surge of pain washing over her in protest, but she carried on, glaring at him for announcing themselves to any other strangers that might be prowling the woods. “Why would you call attention to us?”

“I have to see who’s out there,” he said, then he looked down to her wound, reaching out with one hand as if to touch the closing wound behind her now torn and stained shirt, but decided against it. Instead, he turned around, aiming his musket toward the trees just as another man in a blue coat walked through them with an equally threatening musket held high in his own hands.

Rey nearly laughed upon seeing the new soldier, but managed to compose herself, not wanting to disrupt her still healing body from finishing its work. “There he is.”

In front of her, Ben grew tense; holding his gun tightly enough his knuckles grew white as he gripped his weapon, aiming it firmly at the soldier wearing _his_ colors. As her wound’s pain began to dissipate permanently, Rey watched as his shoulders lost some of their tension, and his body relaxed as the man approached, his somewhat aged face now visible in the rising sunlight. “Do you know him?”

“I do,” Ben replied, but he still didn’t drop his weapon. It didn’t matter that the soldier was on his side. He’d seen them together. By the time this confrontation was over, he would be dead. 

A voice tinged with an accent from the south interrupted anything else he might’ve said after that as the soldier ahead came to a stop, and peered at Ben over his weapon. “Solo? Is that you?” he asked, slowly lowering the musket as recognition dawned in his eyes. “Holy shit… what the hell are you doing here? I could’ve shot you!”

“Captain Canady…” Ben cleared his throat. “I’m delivering a message from Fort Washington to the General at Valley Forge. I stopped for the night to rest.”

“With… with a redcoat?”

“I was just apprehending him.”

The captain looked around Ben, staring at Rey — more specifically, he was starting at her wound, and the fact that despite having clearly been shot… she hadn’t collapsed. He didn’t say anything, and in fact, changed the subject, but either way; he’d noticed, and if they weren’t going to kill him before, they were certainly going to have to now. “It’s not that long a journey to Valley Forge.”

“My horse would disagree with you.”

“Ah, fair enough, troublesome creatures, these horses…” the captain shifted forward as he lowered his gun, his eyes flickering between Ben and Rey. “But I must know… What the hell are you doing with this redcoat?”

“I’m not at liberty to say,” Ben said, and Rey could hear the tension in his voice as he spoke, could see it regaining life in his body as he kept his weapon firmly pointed at the man ahead of them. Rey knew exactly why he felt this way, he was going to have to kill his comrade… his _captain_. This was someone else he’d perhaps bonded with or cared about, and those were always the hardest to let go of. She had yet to kill someone voluntarily, but now Ben was about to do exactly that in front of her eyes. He was about to kill someone close to him, she could hear their friendship in the time of conversation as they talked, and his friend grew confused as to why he hadn’t lowered the gun.

As Ben’s voice began to shake with sadness, Rey knew what she had to do. All the pain from her own musket wound was gone, and she found she could hold her weapon securely with both hands again. She shifted her stance accordingly, and stepped around her friend’s massive stature to aim directly for the man’s head. Both men remained clueless as she moved, too distracted in one another to notice her as she lined up her shot.

 _I’m sorry, Ben,_ she thought, hoping with all her might that he’d forgive her for this, that he’d understand in time if not immediately, and that he would be okay in the long run and not be haunted by yet another death. With that, she let her finger grip the trigger, and she pulled, a loud boom echoed through the hills, causing birds nearby to fly away in fright and Ben’s horse to whinny uncomfortably. Not even a second later, the Captain collapsed to the ground lifelessly, blood pouring from the gaping hole she’d put into his head.

Leaves crunched loudly on the ground as Ben staggered backwards, gasping for breath that had left him from the shock of his captain dying right in front of him like that. He stared between her and the body of the captain for a moment, hurt and betrayal loud and clear in his gaze as he looked at her. “Why the hell did you do that?” he cried, and she could hear tears threatening his voice, reminding her of the last time she’d seen him cry in Paris. “ _Why?_ ”

“You know why I had to,” Rey replied, then she lowered her musket, and slung it back over her shoulder where it belonged. “Ben, I didn’t want you to have to do it.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make!” he shouted, but he, too lowered his weapon, and secured it behind him before he marched forward until he was thoroughly within her space. “What if I didn’t want you to do that?”

She stepped back when she caught sight of the angry growl in his voice, but wasn’t surprised at all by how hurt he was. No matter how that situation ended, he was going to be haunted by what had just happened. In the long run, though, he’d forgive her. They always forgave one another… even if it took them two hundred years. “I’m sorry… I had to. You would’ve been haunted by that for centuries.”

“And what? You think I couldn’t handle that?” he asked, gesturing to the body behind him as he spoke. “Rey… I’ve been handling this kind of thing just as long as you have. I could’ve handled another ghost. I still can. I’m not delicate!”

At this, she reached forward, and shoved him back out of her space. “ _I know!”_ Rage filled her this time, then she continued advancing on him, pushing him back until he was nearly upon his horse. “You think I don’t know what you’ve been through? What I’ve been through?” She pressed a finger into his chest. “Ben, I just wanted to help you. It was going to be terrible either way, but at least now it wasn’t _you._ ”

He stepped forward again, his jaw trembling as he answered her. “Rey, that wasn’t your choice to make.”

For a moment, all she heard was the sound of their breathing as they stared at one another, then they both took a step back, panting hard as they calmed down from the heat of their argument. She nodded slowly, acknowledging that perhaps she’d been wrong. Perhaps it wasn’t best for someone else to take the life of his friend, no matter how small the relationship between them may have been. It was Ben’s choice… and she’d thought it had been so clear, but while she was technically right that it may have hurt him less in the long run, she still had robbed that from him.

“You’re right.”

“What?”

“I said you’re right,” she told him, then she put her hands on her hips. “I’m sorry.”

She then watched the tears in his eyes slowly creep down onto his cheeks, and felt her own threatening to spill over the edge, realizing their time together was now coming to an end. Maybe they’d see one another before the end of the war, maybe they’d see one another before the turn of the next century, but Rey didn’t want to leave him in the first place. She didn’t want him to go. Didn’t want to say goodbye _again_. As her tears spilled over onto her cheeks, she knew it was time to say goodbye.

“I’m sorry, too,” Ben said, letting his hands fall to his sides before he looked up at her again with an even deeper sorrow in his eyes.

“We need to go before more of them find us together.” She sniffled, and wiped her nose clean before she continued. “I don’t want you to have to kill anymore of your friends.”

“But… I don’t… I don’t want to leave.”

“We have to.” She stepped forward, resting a hand on his arm as she spoke. “You have to. This is my campsite… I’ll pack it up and leave this place, and you… you’ll go home… go back to your army, and I’ll go back to mine, and I’ll see you again some other time…” Another tear fell onto her cheek. “Hopefully not on opposite sides… not ever again…”

“No… never…” Ben replied, then he took her face in his hands, wiping away the tear that was making its way down her cheek, making her remember that moment they’d shared in his tent earlier, when she’d thought he was about to kiss her. A part of her wanted him to do it again now, but she knew if they did, she’d never be able to leave him after that. “Rey…” He began to gently stroke the skin of her cheek where he’d wiped away her tears. “Promise you’ll write me.”

“I already did.”

“I know.” He closed his eyes, and swallowed nervously, his Adam’s apple bobbing visibly as he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers, and sending her heart racing again. If he learned forward just a few more inches… she’d let him kiss her. “Just say you will. I want to hear it one more time before we go.”

“This keeps getting harder and harder.” She gripped his sleeve even tighter as if it could stop the inevitable, as if somehow she could keep him there even though they absolutely had to. “Ben… I’ll write to you, I promise…” There was something else she wanted to say at the end of that sentence, but with what they’d nearly just done with each other… with that energy still rife in the air between them… she couldn’t. She’d save those words for a day when they were worthy of being said, when they were both _ready_ to hear them. “I’ll write.”

“Good,” he told her, then Ben pulled away from her slightly, only to lean forward again, and press his lips gently to her forehead. His kiss was short, but lingering, and in the aftermath there was only silence for a few seconds, then he sighed. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll miss you, too,” she said gripping his other arm now as he pulled back. “Promise me you’ll write back.”

Another nod. “I will.” Then Ben leaned back slowly, pulling away from her with a look in his eyes that told her he wanted nothing more than to do the opposite as he backed away toward his horse. “I’ll see you in another century?”

“You will,” she said, and she stepped back toward her tent as she watched him untie his horse’s reins from the tree, then climb up on top of it. “Expect a letter from me in a few days, alright?”

Ben nodded at her from his position atop the horse, then she watched as he reached down and grabbed his uniform hat from its perch on his saddle, tipping it in her direction, and placing it atop his head. For a moment, he looked like he wanted to say something else, but he decided against it, giving her one last, forlorn look before he rode off into the woods. She watched him as he faded away, keeping sight of him until she couldn’t see him through the thick forest, and kept her eye on that spot until the last of the horse’s hoofbeats were no longer audible over the sound of the early birds chirping.

Once he was gone, Rey reached into her pocket, and pulled out the piece of paper he’d handed her with his information on it, studying it for a moment before she took it and sat down over by her tent’s entrance. In that moment, she didn’t have a quill, but that didn’t stop her from plotting out the letter’s contents in her head just minutes after Ben was gone. Didn’t stop her from taking whatever steps she could to ensure that there wouldn’t be another century before they saw one another again.

By the time she got back to her own camp, she was going to know exactly what she was going to write in that letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the cockblock


	16. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1863 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to put up a warning that this chapter is VIOLENT. It gets a bit graphic and well, I have an archive warning for it, and honestly it's probably not as bad as I think it is, but I wanted to warn you ahead of time anyway. Basically, it's the battle of Gettysburg, and this chapter as well as the next cover one of the bloodiest, nastiest battles of the Civil War and there is going to as a result be some blood.

The war for America ended a few years later with Ben’s side victorious. That should have made him proud, but when the redcoat army surrendered and everyone in blue burst into cheers, all he could feel was hollow. The entire time he should’ve been celebrating, he was thinking about the woman he’d been writing to on the other side. 

Was she okay? Had she been there in that final battle? Had they run into one another again and just missed it? He had no idea, all he knew was that as angry as he’d been with her initially, he wanted to be sure she was okay. 

On the evening of September fourth, 1783, Ben composed a letter to Rey, where he remembered she was stationed in New York City after having abandoned her old post south in Virginia. That spawned another rapid fire exchanging of letters between the two, and until 1821, they successfully kept up with one another. Throughout those near forty years, Ben kept thinking about reuniting with her; about asking her to meet him somewhere, and starting a life together, as friends or… 

His mind kept on going back to what had nearly happened in the tent they’d spent the night in between Fort Washington and Valley Forge. He remembered the look in her eyes, how she’d rolled gently onto her back and allowed him to shift on top of her, and how he’d known without a shadow of a doubt that if they hadn’t been interrupted, he would have kissed her. Every time he thought about it, his heart raced as he pondered what it would mean for the next time they saw one another. 

Would they pick up where they left off or would they pretend that nothing had ever happened?

Over those forty years they were in touch, Ben asked himself that question a lot, and grew tempted to write to her about it, but before he could… Rey moved again to avoid getting caught, and he tragically lost sight of her. Still he kept every single letter she’d written him, reading them whenever he got lonely and needed to remember there was someone else out there like him. It got to the point where he’d memorized some of her letters, and he could recite them from memory whenever he was in a time of need. 

There had never been such a crucial time as there was when the calendar finally turned to the second of July, 1863, and he was making his way around the bend of a gently sloping hill in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania while the world burned around him. If he’d thought the war for America was loud or intense, then this was the ninth circle of hell brought to the earth’s surface. All around him bullets whizzed into the guts of friend and foe alike, and cannon fire uprooted dirt that had remained undisturbed for longer than he’d been alive, and Ben was nearly a thousand years old. 

_ Dear Ben,  _

_ I’m writing to inform you that I found a home in Charleston, though I don’t think it’s worth visiting. Much the same as Richmond, the air is like breathing soup. The summers are quite hot, though I recall several that were hotter in the southern coast of Italy, so perhaps I’ve just grown soft... _

_ 18th November, 1804. _

Ben laughed to think of that letter now as he weaved in and out of trees, firing his gun upon any man he didn’t see in a union army uniform as he followed the path his general had set out for him and his fellow troops around the slope of a hill. A few men gave curious stares as they watched him stifle a giggle at the memory of Rey, but no one paid him a whole lot of attention. Everyone around him was focused intently on trying to survive. 

_ Dear Ben,  _

_ Do you remember the first time we became friends? Can you pinpoint a moment when suddenly we didn’t want to run each other through with swords? I think the first time I really started to trust you was in France in that little cottage we had outside of Calais. Considering how things had gone the last time we met… we really shouldn’t have become friends, but I am so very grateful that we did. You make the years a little less hard sometimes. _

_ 23rd January, 1818  _

His heart warmed by the thought of Rey’s letter, he pushed past another tree, bumping into another soldier on his side in his post-memory daze. “ _ Oof! _ ” two voices cried out at once, then Ben and the much shorter soldier beside him went tumbling to the ground just as a spray of bullets flew over their heads. 

“Solo, has anyone ever told you, you have the most impeccable timing?” Private Richard Tico’s suspiciously high pitched voice called out from beneath him. 

Ben nearly laughed as he rolled off of his fellow soldier, then muttered an apology as he got to his feet, and cocked his weapon, firing bullets into the nearest group of trees to take out a group of southerners as they attempted to approach him and his friend. “That was just luck, Private,” he told the other man. “Where’s your brother?”

“He’s somewhere behind us.” They ducked behind another tree as enemy gunfire rained over the forest floor, screams sounding out from the men who hadn’t been lucky enough to avoid it. “We’ll have to reconvene with him later when we’ve dealt with these rebels.”

“Agreed,” Ben replied, turning his head to avoid another bullet as it sailed past him. “We have to get out from behind this tree!”

“How?”

It was a good question, bullets were coming at them from either side, and the confederate army was only marching closer. They had to move, but if they moved, they’d die, and Ben didn’t want to let his comrade fall. Suddenly, a stupid, but probably effective plan came into his brain, and he locked his eyes into the private’s. “Listen, I need you to trust me,” he said suddenly. 

“You know I do.”

Ben couldn’t help the smile that rose to his face, even if he didn’t think he deserved Tico’s trust. “Go left, I’m going to cover us both.”

“What? Are you insane? You’ll get shot five times over!”

“Just trust me, I don’t care, I’m… let’s just say I’m bulletproof,” Ben assured his fellow soldier, who was still looking at him with wide, skeptical eyes, but in war time, they didn’t have many choices. They had to pick the path presented to them in the moment, no matter how shitty and unintelligent it may have seemed. “Go!”

Tico gave him a weird look, but then nodded, and banked left around the far side of the tree while Ben banked right, firing off shot after shot into a row of confederate soldiers, each one he hit going down with a scream that had him wincing. This was another battle he’d be haunted by every night in his dreams from then on, he was sure of it. He’d never forget the immense July heat, or the smell of the dead as he walked over them, or the screams of the dying as they fell to the ground and cried for mercy. This latest war had taken more out of him than he ever could’ve imagined, and if he’d thought things had been bad for him at Bunker Hill, this was progressively making that battle seem like nothing. 

He tried his hardest to fight off the ghosts from the battles of the past, tried to forget who he’d already lost on the battlefields on America’s soil, but he couldn’t push past it no matter how hard he tried. The ghosts were everywhere suddenly, caving in on him even as he tried desperately to protect Tico, and as he screamed his frustration, they finally dissipated, but it was just a little too late. 

A bullet ripped through his arm muscle on his left side, the momentary pain causing him to stagger as he searched for the source of the gun fire. By the time he found it, the soldier in a grey uniform — a short man with a blonde beard stained by blood he’d never forget — was crunching the forest floor beneath his boot as he approached Ben, the sounds of his footsteps echoing vividly in his ears. 

_ Dear Ben, _

_ This latest attack by the British makes me think of the last time we met. I think part of me expected to wake up in that tent with you when I heard the canonfire this time. I didn’t fight, though, I didn’t want to risk us being on opposite sides again. I’ve been working at a church near Washington D.C as a nurse in hopes of healing instead of causing more damage. I’ve grown tired of killing. If you ever wish to find me, the church’s address is listed on the envelope I’ve sent this in. Maybe it’s time we joined forces. Maybe we ought to heal the wounded together... _

_ 16th December, 1812 _

Time moved in slow motion as Ben watched the enemy move closer. Vaguely, he could hear Tico shouting at him as he moved, preparing his weapon to shoot this soldier, but suddenly time came to a standstill again, and everything grew silent — something was coming, something far deadlier than either of the men currently staring one another down over Gettysburg’s hills, something— 

**_BOOM!_ **

A cannon shell struck land just a little ways behind the confederate soldier approaching him, and the ground shook violently while men screamed from the impact, which uprooted the brown dirt and sent it flying over the three men as they made their way toward each other. Ben couldn’t tell what it was exactly that caused what happened next, but somehow in the chaos of the explosion, the enemy’s weapon went off, and the next instance of sharp, terrible pain struck Ben in his gut. This would’ve been fine with him if it had an exit wound, but he didn’t feel the bullet tear through the skin of his back. 

_ It was now trapped inside of him _ . His skin would heal and close around the entrance wound, leaving the bullet to dig around and cut apart his insides, which would heal and mend themselves only to allow the damn thing to do its damage again. He needed to get it out as soon as possible, he needed a medic, and he needed one immediately. 

“ _ Ben! _ ” Tico cried, then his weapon went off, firing into the skull of the confederate soldier as he rushed to his friend’s side, likely thinking him a dead man walking. The soldier’s brains and blood sprayed out onto the nearest tree, and his body collapsed to the ground as crimson began to seep from Ben’s wounds, and pain shot through his gut. “Ben, hold on!”

Oh, he’d hold on alright, but already he felt like he couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t stand, he couldn’t think, couldn’t move, couldn’t hear or see. All there was around him was bright, white hot pain and the crimson of his blood as he clutched his wound tightly with his hands, feeling the wet, warm fluid that was supposed to stay inside of him come out in a steady stream. He could vaguely register Tico continuing to beg him to hold on, then he felt his fellow soldier kneel down beside him as he collapsed, and catch him before he could fall completely. 

One of his arms was wrapped around Tico’s shoulders, but Ben couldn’t move no matter how hard Tico tried to lift him, he was lead, sinking and drowning as the bullet tore his insides apart. There was a vague part of him that was aware that he was screaming, that he was in more pain than he’d been in in centuries, but he couldn’t hear it. All he could hear was white noise, all he could feel was the hot heat of the sun as it beat down on the navy blue of his uniform, and all he could see was Tico’s similarly colored back as he lifted Ben onto his shoulder, grunting under the strain of his weight as he began to carry him across the battlefield, wielding both their weapons to carve a path through the forest. 

At least, that’s what Ben thought he was doing, he couldn’t quite be sure as he was carried over unfamiliar terrain, the battle raging around him as Tico trudged through it, shooting seemingly anyone who got in their way if they weren’t wearing the navy of the Union. Several times, his body was pierced by more bullets, but he gladly — and miserably — took them all. If he was absorbing them, Tico wasn’t, and his friend could go on to live another day, his friend could survive the carnage at Gettysburg, could go on to have a life after this wretched war was over. 

Ben could take a bullet. He was bulletproof in a way, after all, but none of the other men on this battlefield could. No one else in the  _ world  _ could, except for one person, and he had no clue where she was. 

Suddenly the heat of the July sun disappeared, and the white noise gave way to more screams, pained groans, and desperate cries for help. The smells shifted too, and the scent of blood and death and decay all grew stronger amidst an underlying odor of sweat. It was just like the outside, but it lacked that special quality to it that being in nature always did no matter how many other things were added to it. In here, he also could smell the smoke of burnt clothing from those who had been too close to the fire of a cannon shell. 

Voices entered his ear again, and he could hear the similarly high pitched sound of Tico’s brother, Patrick, as suddenly his vision started returning to him. His outer wounds had started to heal, and all that was left was the sole bullet that had made its home within the contents of his stomach. He could see a wooden floor passing him by as Richard Tico’s steps grew unsteady beneath him, then his vision stabilized as he felt another pair of hands lifting him higher, and Patrick joined his brother in supporting his weight as the two men carried him through what had to be a hospital. 

A quick glance to either side of him confirmed the thought. They were in one of Gettysburg’s churches, dashing across a floor that had once been lined with pews and church goers as soldiers died and cried out for help left and right. Nurses and doctors tried in vain to treat their wounds, and he watched women with hard faces and bloodied aprons work tirelessly to try and save men that were beyond saving. 

Fortunately for those women, a patient had just strolled in who was going to be very difficult for them to lose, but having to explain to them that they were going to have to cut him open again to retrieve his bullet was going to be another thing entirely. 

Patrick and Richard slowly came to a halt, and Ben groaned as he was suddenly being set down onto a stiff, white cot coated with brown stains he suspected were once a different color, and then rolled over onto his back. “He was shot,” Richard’s voice echoed in his head. “He was trying to cover me and he was shot… I… I didn’t know where else to bring him…” As Ben blinked his eyes open again, he caught sight of tears streaming down his friend’s dirt covered face, revealing the light colored flesh beneath. “I didn’t want to leave him to die.”

“You made a good choice,” a familiar voice replied, a deep, feminine voice he knew all too well. He’d heard it so many times across the centuries he’d sometimes started  _ thinking  _ in that voice. But it was impossible. He was just in pain and hallucinating, wasn’t he? There was no way he could be that lucky. “Thank you both for your help, you should get back out there.”

“We’re not leaving him,” Richard Tico said sternly. “He’s my best friend. If he dies, I need to be there.”

“You have a duty, need I remind you?” Rey’s stern voice replied, and instantly, Ben knew without a shadow of a doubt that it was her. He’d found her again. 

“ _ Rey, _ ” he said weakly, but none of the three people surrounding him seemed to hear him, and he watched as she pointed a blue sleeved arm at his fellow soldiers, and ordered them to stand clear. “ _ Rey, please…” _

She still didn’t listen, but she finally entered his narrow field of vision properly, her voice echoing over the pain that was spawned from the bullet carving his insides like a knife as she bent down to undo the buttons of his coat. “The least you could do is get me another nurse, I’m going to have to extract the bullet from him and someone’s going to need to hold him down.”

_ Oh, fuck, that was going to hurt.  _

“We can do it,” Patrick protested, then he lowered his voice, and suddenly when he spoke, he sounded feminine. “We used to have your job. We can help.” In his dizziness, Ben was in no position to process what that meant, but he made a mental note to ask the brothers about it later, though he suspected by then he would have found out that they were actually sisters. 

Rey’s hands faltered midway through unbuttoning his uniform, and she looked between Richard and Patrick for a moment before she gave them a nod. “Okay, help me get him free of his coat and shirt. He’s got at least three bullet holes on his arms and two on his legs not to mention the one on his torso…” She paused, her brows furrowing at him curiously. “How in the hell is he still alive?”

_ Finally, she asked that question.  _ “Rey,” he repeated, reaching up weakly to grasp her wrist in one of his hands. At first, she flinched away, and tried to retract her hand from his grip, but then he tightened his hold. “Rey, it’s me.” Why the hell didn’t she recognize him? 

She stared at him for a moment, then she reached up with her free hand, her eyes growing wide as she rested it on his face, and wiped his skin with her palm. When it came away covered in dirt, he understood why she hadn’t seen who he was right away. He’d been covered in debris from the explosion that had gotten him shot. Of course she didn’t know who he was. “ _ Ben, _ ” she breathed, then he let go of her wrist, and she took his hand in hers and rested her forehead against his knuckles. “Oh my god, Ben…”

“Hi,” he said, unable to fight back a smile in spite of the pain that was ripping through his body from the bullet still lodged inside of him. 

“Of course you’d be here,” she muttered, then she squeezed his hand a little more tightly before letting go of it. “Listen, I’ll say a proper hello to you later, right now, we need to take care of the bullet in your gut. Is that alright?”

Anything she suggested he would’ve been alright with, but he simply nodded, then he let go of her hand. “Don’t go easy on me, okay?” He swallowed nervously, knowing damn well what was coming. “Just get it out… I’ll be okay no matter how much I scream.”

Rey winced at the thought, but nodded, then she stood up from his cot, and began barking orders at Patrick and Tico, demanding certain supplies and for them to perform certain tasks, and repeating each thing twice to ensure they understood it. Both soldiers parted from Ben and Rey with a quick, “Yes, ma’am!” then they ran off to complete their tasks as his nurse reached over to the nearby table for a bottle with a familiar looking amber liquid, then she handed it to him with a pleading look in her hazel eyes. 

“What is this?” he asked, groaning as he took in a breath that caused the bullet to shift within his gut again. 

“It’s whiskey, drink it,” she ordered him, and with a weak hand, he took it out of hers, and unscrewed the cap. “Drink a lot of it…” Her voice seemed to tremble as she spoke, and he watched her dry tongue dart out to attempt to wet equally parched lips. “You’re going to need it.”

Ben didn’t protest, and immediately began to down the whiskey, wincing at the burn of it as it rushed down his throat and into his damaged insides, causing a stinging sensation that nearly made him throw up with every sip that he took. Rey sat by his side, and held one of his hands through all of it, shushing him as she reached over to her supply table for a wet cloth, grabbing it from a small, wooden bowl of water,before beginning to wipe the dirt from his face. “It’s going to be okay… you’re going to be fine.”

“I know I will,” he said as he finished off a good quarter of the whiskey in her bottle, then he handed it back to her. “I always am.”

“Maybe, but I’m a nurse now and it’s habit.”

“You’ve been a nurse for a while, haven’t you? Your letters from 1812 were very descriptive about what you did.”

Rey’s cheeks flushed pink. “Yes, I… went back to my roots as a doctor, picked up the medicinal practice once more and… wound up here. I didn’t want to risk us seeing one another again as enemies.”

An explosion rattled the ground then, and nearly everyone in the church let off some kind of scream as dust fell over the makeshift hospital’s interior. Ben locked eyes with her as everything settled, then he shook his head. “You think I could honestly join forces with the men in the grey? The men who started all this? Rey…” He almost laughed, but instead just took her hand as she finished wiping him free of dirt. “I could never. What the confederate states are fighting for, what they stand for? I would never, and I never have.” He let go of her hand, allowing her to return her rag to its proper place. “I want to fight for what’s right… and that’s not it.”

Rey nodded slowly. “Okay.” She then backed away from him as the Tico brothers returned with the supplies she’d asked for, and retrieved what he knew had to be a scalpel and a piece of leather for him to bite down on. Despite the liquor already swirling through his brain, Ben felt his heart race at the sight. This was going to hurt and it was going to hurt phenomenally. A groan escaped his lips as she instructed him to sit up, and finish removing his clothing, but he obliged the command, even as he bit back a scream from how the bullet shifted inside of him, cutting through what must’ve been a kidney or even an intestine as he took off his jacket, then his shirt, exposing his blood covered torso to the air. 

Her eyes scanned his body for signs of his entrance wound, worry growing on her face as she didn’t find any, then she sighed as she reached over for her rag, and began to wipe the blood off of his stomach and chest. “You sure you trust me to do this?”

“Rey, if anyone else does it, they’ll know.”

“These two will figure it out anyway, Ben, they’ll see.”

“Let them,” Ben replied, gripping her hand once more as she prepared to put away her rag. He ignored the stares of the Ticos as they watched his abdomen move with every breath, free of any mark left behind by a gunshot. “Rey… do it.”

She gave him another hesitant look, then she glanced up at the brothers beside him. He felt his breathing grow fast as his nurse instructed the soldiers to hold him down, then Patrick’s hands were at his legs, and Richard was standing by his head holding his arms down. 

Weakly, he reached up a hand to hold onto Richard’s, and his friend squeezed it tight as Rey took the scalpel in her hand, and placed it over where the heaviest concentration of blood had been. “Normally I wouldn’t do it like this,” she said, then she swallowed nervously. “But since it’s you…”

“Just do it,” Ben panted. “I’ll be okay…”

“Ben…”

“Get it out of me!” he shouted, then Rey seemed to blink back tears that he hadn’t even noticed developing, and she slowly lowered the blade to his skin. 

It had honestly been too long since the last time he’d truly felt pain. What happened the moment Rey first cut into his skin sent sharp, hot shocks of pain through his body that were so intense he couldn’t help the screams that escaped him even as he bit down onto the leather they'd given him. It was better than biting through his tongue, but not much. If he were being honest, that might’ve been a reprieve compared to how this felt. 

_ Dear Ben, _

_ I got shot today. Got into a bar scuffle near Savannah. Apparently southern hospitality is just a rumor. It made me think of your last letter where you had the same thing happen to you in Chattanooga. You told me you had to dig a bullet out of yourself and kept passing out? Oh god, that same thing happened to me today, and it was not an experience I’m keen to repeat any time soon. That was quite possibly the most pain I’ve ever been in… I hope neither of us ever feels such a thing ever again… _

_ 3rd June, 1792 _

The pain was so intense he blacked out almost instantly, not unlike the last time he’d had to dig a bullet out of himself — and oh, that had been fun to keep opening himself up again after he’d passed out — and kept zoning in and out of consciousness. He saw flashes of brilliant red, a brief glimpse of his own internal organs — which nearly made him pass out again — and through it all Rey’s steady, focused features as she dug through him with her hands, searching desperately for the tiny little piece of metal before his healing body closed itself up again. 

He cried out as her hands continued desperately shifting through his body, the scent of his own blood filling the air as he felt Rey finally close her fist around something. 

_ “It’s by his lung!”  _ Her voice echoed in his ears, and he vaguely heard Richard swear as he gripped his hand so tightly he wondered how he didn’t manage to break any of his friend’s bones.  _ “I’ve almost got it!” _

Tears were actively streaming down his face from the agony he was in as he finally felt Rey’s hand make a slow and steady retreat from his guts. Still her hand made its way out far too slowly, and he could tell it was because she didn’t want to cause him any pain, but  _ fuck,  _ it wasn’t helping. He just didn’t have the energy to scream anymore, and thus weak sobs escaped his lips instead of agonized shouts as he blacked out again, and the world continued to appear to him in short bursts of light and echoes of sound. 

He could see little flickers of Rey’s face, could hear tiny chunks of the encouragements the Tico brothers were giving him as he tried his best not to writhe in pain from what had happened to him. “ _ You’ll be okay, Ben,” _ someone whispered, and a hand stroked his hair gently as finally his bullet appeared in his field of vision, gleaming red with a fresh coat of his blood. There was another echoing clang as he heard it clang loudly on Rey’s supply tray, the noise covered only by the sounds of incessant gunfire outside as two armies raged war on the town. 

“Why aren’t you closing him up?” Richard’s voice echoed in his head. “You can’t just leave him like this!”

“Just trust me, I know him,” Rey replied, and he caught a glimpse of her hand on his friend’s arm. “He’ll be fine. Get me more whiskey.”

“But you have—“

“Please,” Rey begged, and he could hear the sobs threatening to break through her voice as she looked up at Private Tico. “You and your brother… I need a moment.”

The brothers looked at one another, nodded, then the two union coated men made their way away from the cot, and Rey stood up fully, walking around to Ben’s right side to slide a curtain shut, hiding them from the rest of the church. The only thing that could see them was the sun as its rays shone brilliantly through the stained glass window nearby. Light hued the colors of the rainbow shone down on them both as Rey covered her mouth with a blood covered hand, then sank down to Ben’s cot as she unleashed the tears she’d been holding back since he suspected the moment she saw him. 

“Rey,” he said softly, feeling his senses slowly returning to him in full as his wound closed itself, and red blood stopped flowing along the planes of his abdomen, drying into an ugly rust over his still smooth skin. “ _ Rey… _ ”

A sob escaped her in response, then he held up his hand, shaking it in the air in the hopes that she’d take it. “Rey, I’m okay,” he said quietly, though his own voice was trembling now. “Rey…”

At this, she turned to face him, and didn’t even seem to care that he was still bleeding as she fell forward, and wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers weaving themselves into his hair as she pulled him into a tight embrace. He grunted from the impact, but didn’t hesitate to return the gesture, his arms encompassing her back as he hugged her properly for the first time in centuries. 

Sobs fled Rey’s throat as she buried her face into the bare skin of his shoulder, and ordinarily, his heart would’ve raced at the thought of this much of her touching his bare skin, but he couldn’t think of that right then. She was strong, she had to be in order to do what she did — what she’d done her whole life — but he suspected it had been a while since she’d had to cut into someone she was so close to. Seeing loved ones in pain, that did something to a person, and Ben remembered vividly how he’d felt when he saw that she’d been shot by Canady a century earlier. He’d been heartbroken and terrified, scared that maybe for once, she wouldn’t heal, and he’d actually lose her. 

_ Fuck,  _ if he lost her… after all this time, he genuinely didn’t know what he’d do with himself. 

“I’m okay, Rey,” he whispered softly, stroking her back gently with one hand as she sobbed into his neck. “I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry,” she croaked back, and he felt wet, hot tears on his skin, making him ache for her as he held her closer in his arms. “I’m so sorry I did that to you.”

“You had to Rey, you had to. It would’ve been worse if you didn’t,” Ben promised her, then he shushed her quietly as she let loose another string of sobs. “It’s okay… you got it out. I’m fine.”

She sniffled, then she slowly pulled away from him, her face looking red and puffy from how hard she was crying as she wiped a wet string of snot from her nose. “I’m sorry…” she breathed. “I should be the one comforting you, not the other way around.”

“It’s okay.”

“No… it’s not.” She shook her head, then she placed her palm over her forehead. “Ben, you’ve been through hell, I just… watching you suffer made me feel… I don’t know it just… I’ve seen people in pain, I’ve seen them hurt, I’ve watched them die… but watching you scream just now…” She swallowed back another sob, then her voice grew quiet. “I think that may have been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to witness. I just… you were in pain, and all I could do was put you in more of it to stop it and—“

At this, Ben sat up, and wrapped her into his arms again to hide the onslaught of tears that fled his eyes, too. Rey sniffled at his touch, but still wrapped her arms around his waist, her palms feeling cool against the sweat soaking his back as she held him without care for how utterly disgusting he was. Of course, she’d never given a shit about how he’d looked or how clean he was, and neither had he about her. They were past the point of caring what the other looked like. After all, Ben loved her, as both his friend and as… something else he’d never really felt with another human yet, and that meant whether she was in perfect condition or on death’s door, he was going to still feel something for her. 

“I know, Rey,” he whispered. “I know. You did what you had to do.” Another wave of tears slipped from his eyes, then he ran his fingers along the ridges of her spine, causing her to sigh against him. Perhaps the gesture was a touch too intimate for what they had set as the definition of their friendship, but he didn’t care. Rey was hurting, and as she was attempting to do to him, he was going to comfort her in any way he could. “I’m just glad I got to see you again.”

“Me too,” she breathed. “I’m so glad you’re here, Ben this war… I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“No, this is… this is the most horrible thing… I think I’ve ever seen.”

“They keep getting worse…” She sniffled as she stroked her thumb over the skin of his back. “Every time people fight it gets more and more violent. Ben… I… I’m worried for… for what comes next…”

“Don’t worry about that right now.” He pulled back, and took her face in his hands, wiping away drops of dried blood and tears as he looked into her eyes. She didn’t hesitate to do the same, a gentle thumb wiping away the salt water that leaked from  _ his  _ eyes. “I just… I want to know what happened to you? We must’ve lost touch you never responded to my last letter.”

“When did you send it?”

“1821, in late October?”

She shook her head, her voice trembling over another sob. “I never got it. Something went wrong… I… I tried writing to you, but… nothing.”

“Oh, god, Rey…” he breathed, then he took her in his arms again, resting his chin on her shoulder. “I’m here now.”

“Me, too,” she replied, then she pressed a tiny kiss to the side of his head. “I’m… I’m so glad you’re here.”

Another shell struck near the church, and they clung a little more tightly to each other through the impact, then they both let out a breath of relief as the building settled. Once the dust had gathered into its new position on the floor, Rey pulled back from him, and for a moment, he was taken back to that tent again because she was so close. He could see every single one of her freckles from here, could see every fleck of gold in her eyes, and the little rust colored specks from where his blood had gotten on her forehead. 

Again he felt that pull, like she was a magnet he couldn’t help but be drawn into, and for a fraction of a second, he began to lean in, ready to take advantage of the moment of privacy they’d been granted—

“Nurse? We have the whiskey you asked for,” he heard Richard say, then he winced as he pulled back from Rey, and she gave them a smile as she accepted it. 

“Thank you,” she replied, then she took the whiskey, and handed it to Ben. “You, drink this.” Rey then waited for him to take it and do as she’d asked before she turned back to the Ticos. “You two, report to whoever’s necessary what’s happened, but…” She looked back at Ben, who nodded as he took another sip of his whiskey. “Don’t tell them he’s healed… I’ll think of something to do, but for now, leave us, return to your post… defend the union…”

“But what about Ben?” he heard the younger of the two ask. 

“He’ll be here by tonight… just… just let him rest, alright?” 

The brothers nodded, then both clapped hands on Ben’s shoulder as they made their way out of the church, leaving Ben and Rey to themselves once again. 

He exhaled slowly before he took a sip of his whiskey, watching his friends as they walked away, then he turned his eyes on Rey. “We’re not going to be here tonight, are we?”

“No.” She rested a hand on his shoulder, then reached for another rag with her free hand, wetting it in a water basin before she began to clean off the blood coating his chest and stomach. “We need to leave as quickly as possible. Too many people saw what happened today, you need to go somewhere else where no one knows you.”

Ben nodded, taking another swig of his whiskey before he handed it to her. “One more day,” he said quietly. “I can’t leave the army here like this. If the enemy wins… Rey…”

“One soldier can’t possibly make the difference.”

“He might if he saves the men who can.”

“Ben, please,” she begged him, then the hand that was wiping off the blood on his chest froze just over his heart, and he wondered if she could feel how hard it was beating. “I can’t… I can’t go through what I went through today. Doing that once was hard enough, and I’d do it for you a thousand times in a heartbeat, but please don’t make me do it again so soon.”

His eyebrows skyrocketed in disbelief. “You’d do that for me again?”

“Of course I would,” she breathed as she ran the rag along another rust colored stripe of dried blood, causing him to shiver as the rag ran over his nipple. Perhaps he was still just a bit too dizzy from what he’d been through, but he would swear he caught a hint of a smirk crossing her features as she watched him, then she dipped the rag in the basin, and rang it out before she reached forward, and pressed it to the other side of his chest. “Ben, we’ve been through so much… we’ve changed… we used to hate one another, but… but now I consider you my closest and only true friend, and as a result… That… that means..” She took a deep breath, steeling herself before she continued. “I love you… and… and I think that’s why this is so much harder than it’s supposed to be.”

_ Oh,  _ she had to feel his heart racing at that. He shifted his mouth as he swallowed back the feelings that threatened to bubble to the surface on hearing that, then he placed a hand over the one she had covering his chest. “Rey…” He leaned forward, gripping the base of her skull in his other hand to press a gentle kiss to her forehead like he had when he’d said goodbye to her near Valley Forge. “I love you, too, and I promise, I won’t make you do that again. I swear it. As long as I live, you will never have to do that for me again.”

“That’s too big a promise to make,” Rey protested. 

“No, it’s not, because I’m going to fulfill it.” He gripped her hand a little more tightly. “I’m going to wake up tomorrow, and I’m going to fight until this is over, and then you and I can get on the Gettysburg rail, and ride it to Hanover Junction, then we’ll catch the next train to wherever the hell we end up next. We’ll go, and who I was here will be declared missing. It’ll be easy to disappear, but… whether or not you come with me is the question.”

Rey nodded enthusiastically. “Yes!” she breathed, nodding enthusiastically. “I want to go with you, Ben. I’m..” She laced her fingers through with his. “I’m ready. I… I’m ready to stop being alone.”

“You’re sure?” he asked, trying to clamp down the delight that was rising within him as he heard the words he’d been waiting to hear for so long. “You’ll come with me.”

“It’s like you said. It’ll be easy to disappear.” She gave him a coy smile, then he felt his cheeks flush with heat, and she continued wiping him free of his blood. “And if you haven’t seen… none of the other nurses in this church have noticed I’ve been with you for far longer than I should be.” 

There was a large part of him that stupidly wanted to take her face in his hands and kiss her senseless right then and there. She was saying everything he longed to hear, and after the pain he’d just been in, his heart was soaring. God damn it, he loved this woman, but saying it would mean he’d face either an eternity with her or centuries of awkwardness in the aftermath of rejection, and he wasn’t ready to risk ruining what they had. For now, Ben was perfectly happy with what they had, and so he settled for resting his forehead against hers. “I’ll meet you tomorrow night then? We’ll meet here?”

A laugh blew past her lips. “Bold of you to assume I’m letting you out of my sight tonight,” she told him, then she pulled away, and pointed to the setting sun outside the windows. “You’re resting here for the night. We have ninety years to catch up on, and no one will believe that you got up immediately from a wound like this. If we’re going to fake your death, we ought to make it look like you fought for life first.”

Ben groaned as he sank back into his cot. “You’re so bossy.”

“You love it,” she told him, then she watched the light shine down over him through the stained glass, catching the green-tinged Rey’s over his chest as she wiped the last of the blood from him, then she threw her cloth back into the basin, and slowly stood. “I need to check on my other patients. You put your clothes on and don’t go anywhere, alright?”

Ben snorted his laughter, but he nodded, and gave Rey a mock salute. “Yes, ma’am.”

Rey rolled her eyes, then she reached over, and ruffled his hair affectionately, and his cheeks burned anew as he watched her smile reach her eyes, and she walked out from behind the curtain, and got back to work. He could hear her voice shouting out commands as new soldiers came in, and only when she was gone did he notice again the sounds of all the screams of the wounded. 

It astounded him a little just how oblivious he’d been to it before hand, but now he heard it, it was overwhelming. As he reached for the white undershirt he’d been wearing, Ben felt a pang of sympathy for the men who couldn’t heal, and realized the one slight perk to his immortality. He could get shot and be right as rain half an hour later. These men… for them getting shot was a death sentence. 

Wincing at the sound of another man’s anguished screams, Ben turned away and threw his shirt on over his head, then he reached for the coat of his uniform, throwing it on loosely, but not closing it as he turned around, and peeled open the curtain separating him from the rest of the hospital. It didn’t take him long at all to spot Rey, her apron still coated in stains from his blood as she bent over another patient, helping to inspect his injuries as he writhed in pain on the cot they’d laid him down on. 

A sadness filled his gaze as he watched her work, but it was ultimately overshadowed by happiness. The world around them was in chaos as usual, but somehow, despite it all, despite the odds that said they shouldn’t; they’d found one another again, and Ben didn’t believe in destiny, but if he did, he knew that his was irrevocably tied with Rey’s. And now they’d agreed to finally start that life they wanted to live together. They’d chosen the worst possible time to do it, and for all he knew the war might still have torn them apart, but they were going to try. That made everything worth it. 

He could only hope that time would be kind to them; that the  _ war _ would be kind to them. That they’d be allowed to fight for the future they wanted and to keep one another in their lives at the same time. It seemed impossible, but then again, so was living forever. 

If there was anyone who could ever live the impossible… it was the two of them.


	17. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, 1863 CE - Atlanta, Georgia 1864 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS IS LONG AND SCARCELY EDITED BUT IVE GOT FINALS SO I WAS EAGER TO GET IT OUT. Thank you all so much for putting up with me and it... and... have fun...

The next morning, Rey sat down on Ben’s cot as he slept, pretending to attend to her patient as she pressed a palm over his chest. As always, his heart was beating steadily, racing beneath her palm as she touched the now clothed muscles there. At some point after she’d last left him, he’d managed to put his uniform back on, though she grimaced at the red stain she saw over his abdomen. It was small considering how much pain the bullet had caused him, but it was an unfortunate reminder of what she’d had to do to him to prevent hours of pure agony. 

As long as she lived, she was never going to forget the sound of his screams, or how his entire body had gone pale while she’d cut into him, and dug around inside to find one tiny, otherwise insignificant piece of metal. Just the thought of it brought tears to her eyes, and she couldn’t help the sniffle that came out as she reached down, and took one of his hands in hers, holding it tightly as she stared down at his sleeping face. 

Logically, she knew she’d never lose him. He was immortal the same way she was, but seeing him suffer like that had made her question everything she knew about their regenerative abilities. For a moment, she had feared that he wouldn’t close up on his own, that he’d succumb to his injuries and at long last, she would’ve lost the one person she had so far managed to keep. This fear had led her brain rushing down a tunnel of thought that had culminated in two realizations. 

The first had been that she needed to keep him in her life at least for a little while if not forever. She needed to see him alive and well, and she couldn’t do that if she let him leave her here at Gettysburg. So she was going to join him at long last, and they were going to live whatever life together they could throughout this war. Whatever happened next was going to be a matter of guessing. 

Her second realization had been built upon the one she’d had in the tent nearly a century prior. Back then she’d realized for the first time that she was falling in love with him, but when she’d thought there was a chance that he was going to die, her heart had burst with the realization that she already had. 

Rey was in love with Ben, and that terrified as well as exhilarated her. It had been centuries since she thought she might love someone, and never had she loved someone the way she did with him. With everyone else, they were fleeting, and she could never give them all of her heart, because one day they’d just wind up taking it to the grave. 

With Ben… with Ben she could give him every piece of her soul if he wanted it. But what if he didn’t want her in turn?

That had been why when he finally came down from his pain and they’d been given a moment to talk, she’d confessed her love for him as her friend. It wasn’t exactly a lie; Ben was the most amazing man she’d ever met and she would gladly take him as an eternal, platonic partner, but it omitted a very strong, fundamental truth that she was romantically in love with him as well. 

One day, she thought she might try to tell him, but there in the church of the haunted town of Gettysburg, she fell prey to cowardice. She couldn’t quite summon the courage to say it, and already, regret was filtering into her relief. 

The hand she was holding flexed in that moment, interrupting her from her thoughts, but before she could say his name, before she could rouse him into a fully awake state, a cannon shell from outside did it for her. The ground shook violently as it impacted near the church, screams sounding around them as the wounded and the nurses both cried out in fear. Ben’s eyes snapped open then, and he sat up abruptly to look at her with concern vibrant in the golden flecks of his brown irises. “Rey?” he asked softly. 

She tightened her grip on his hand. “I’m here,” she told him, then she gave him a lukewarm smile. “How are you feeling?”

“Thanks to you?” The corners of his mouth twitched upward. “I feel perfect.”

“That’s good.”

“I’m ready to go back,” he continued, and her face fell as she listened to his words. “I want to finish this.”

The lump that had welled in her throat yesterday made a very sudden and rapid return upon hearing that, and she shook her head urgently. “Please don’t.”

“Rey, I have to.”

“You don’t… we can leave this place, we can go somewhere else where the fighting isn’t as bad—“

He placed a hand on her cheek, effectively cutting off her words as he wiped away a tear she hadn’t noticed forming with his thumb. “Rey…” She watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed, then he shook his head. “I made you a promise yesterday, and I swear to you, I won’t break it.”

“You can’t know that, Ben,” she protested, feeling another tear make its way down onto her cheek before he brushed it away. “There’s no way for you to know that.”

“What would you do if you were me?” he asked, then he sighed as he leaned forward, resting his head against hers. “You know you’d do the exact same thing.”

“I would.” She sniffled again at that, then leaned further into him. “I absolutely would.”

Ben let out a shuddering breath, then he leaned forward, and placed a gentle, lingering kiss to her cheek. “Then you know why I have to go.”

As he pulled away, she rested a hand over the one she was already holding, trying desperately not to hope that he meant anything by that tiny little kiss. Her heart raced faster in her chest as she tried to gather her thoughts together, but when he was that close, and his lips were the color of cherries, she couldn’t help her reaction. 

Eventually, though, she managed to pull herself together enough to nod, and her brain finally formed a few coherent sentences. “Then go,” she said, managing to look him in the eyes just as his own began to mist over. “Go, and meet me at the rail station when darkness falls. We’re heading south tonight. I don’t care where we go, Ben, but we need to make a quick escape. I don’t want people catching you.”

“No one will,” he promised her, then he let the hand on her cheek drop, and she shivered slightly when it accidentally skimmed over the swell of one of her breasts. “Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she breathed, though she was certainly going to be thinking about it for the next several hours until she met up with him again. Secretly, she’d be hoping he’d do it again, only this time it wouldn’t be such an accide—

_ No.  _

“I’ll come back,” he told her, then a tear fell down onto his own cheek, and she could hear a tremor in his voice. “I will, I always do.”

“I know,” she whispered, then she reached up, and wiped away his tear before allowing her hand to fall down to sit on his chest. “Now go. Go and fight. Win that fucking battle, and wave that stupid flag. Make us proud… make me proud. And then come back to me, and don’t leave.”

At this, Ben smiled, and she watched his eyes flicker downward ever so briefly like they had the day before, then they met hers again, and he gave her a nod. “I’ll go find General Meade, see where he needs me.” He stood up then, and she followed suit, finally letting go of his hand as he adjusted his uniform so that it didn’t look rumpled from sleep. “Rey, if the battle isn’t over tonight…”

“Then you keep fighting.” It took all of her strength to tell him that command, but it needed to be said. She realized that if Ben abandoned these men in the heat of battle, it would haunt him for the rest of eternity as he thought over how many deaths he could’ve prevented. He couldn’t stay there, no matter how badly she might’ve wanted him to. “You fight until you win. I’ll wait for you… no matter how long it takes.”

Ben looked torn between laughing and crying, settling for an odd mix of both as a tear fell from his eyes, but a smile parted his lips. “How the hell did we end up here?” He shook his head in disbelief. “When we first met… we hated each other.”

“I stabbed you twice,” she whispered.

“I stabbed you, too.”

“How did we get here?” she wondered, then she launched herself forward, wrapping her arms around his waist to pull him close in one last hug goodbye. “How did it get so hard to leave?”

Ben gave a weak, short, sharp cough of a laugh, then he wrapped his arms around her, sighing as he returned her embrace. “I’ll be back in a few hours, don’t worry.”

“We’re friends now… we’ve been friends for centuries,” she reminded him. “We’re allowed to be worried about each other.”

“I suppose you’re right,” he said, then he pulled back from their embrace, and briefly caressed her cheek with his palm before he stepped back, and grabbed the gun Patrick and Richard had brought with them from the battlefield from where it was leaning against her supply table. “I’ll be seeing you later, then?”

“You will.” she took in a deeper breath than she probably needed to. “Good luck, Ben.”

For a moment it looked like he wanted to say something else, but then he simply gave her a small nod, and turned away, walking out of the church as she watched until he walked through the doors at the front, and back out into the battle. 

The moment he was gone, it was as if suddenly she could hear all of the gunfire and violence, as if all of the screams were the loudest sounds she’d ever heard. The anguish of humanity surrounded her as she closed her eyes, trying to center herself again as reality came crashing in. It was as if while he was there, she had a brief reprieve from it all, but now… Now she could see it. 

_ Fuck,  _ she really was in deep wasn’t she? When the hell had she even started falling? She tried to think of a specific time, a specific place where she’d started feeling something for Ben, but she couldn’t. It was as if these feelings were a part of her — as if they’d always been there, as impossible as it was. 

Shaking herself out of her stupor, Rey stood up straighter, and immediately got back to work. If Ben wasn’t leaving Gettysburg with unfinished business, then neither was she. 

From there, the day passed unbelievably slowly. It was made worse by the fear wrought by each cannon shell she could hear firing upon the earth. While she knew her fellow immortal could survive such a thing, she still felt terror every time that somehow he’d managed to wound himself again, that she’d be putting him through hell to spare him more pain. 

By the time the confederate army surrendered, Rey was practically itching to run away from the church as far as she could and find Ben. Hiding under the cover of victory shouts, Rey made her way quietly out of the church, and rushed toward the rail station as quickly as she could, shedding her bloody apron as she left, and tossing it somewhere on the floor to never be seen again. 

She had never run so fast in her life even though she didn’t need to. If Ben had made it, he would wait for her there. No matter when the train left that evening, he wouldn’t leave without her on it. That thought comforted her as she made a brief pass through the Pennsylvania woods while night began to fall over Gettysburg. 

By the time she reached the station, she was completely out of breath, and there was almost no one else around. At least, that was how it was from the outside. From the inside, she could hear the screams of the wounded and dying as they suffered in their agony from what they’d received in battle. The station was another of Gettysburg’s hospitals, and that night, another train would be rolling into the station to carry the wounded out of the small town, and into other hubs of care, or if they were lucky — home. 

She stood waiting patiently outside where the train would later be by to pick up passengers, and she and Ben would sneak on board to head elsewhere into the United States. Briefly, she stopped a worker to investigate when the next train would be departing, but after she found out that it would be in little more than an hour, she didn’t speak to anyone else. After hearing that, she stepped back, and leaned against the wall outside, half tempted to go in and assist the patients, but selfishly not wanting to miss the moment her friend arrived at the station. 

They’d been through too much to separate again after just a few hours. She needed him close for the time being; however long the universe would allow that to be. 

It was another half an hour before she finally saw him come around the nearby corner of the building, and a stupidly broad smile lit up her face as she ran up to meet him; his own lips parting as the one he gave her reached his eyes. Just as she started getting closer to him, though, the two soldiers he’d brought with him to the church earlier stepped out from behind. Fear must’ve shown on her face when she saw them, and Ben put his hands up. 

“What the hell are they doing here?” Rey asked in disbelief. 

“Listen to what they have to say, then you’ll know why they need to come with us,” he replied, then he gestured back to Patrick and Richard, and they watched as both men slowly took off the hats of their uniforms. 

Already, understanding filled Rey, but it wasn’t until both of them let their hair down that she realized what Ben was intending to show her. “You’re women,” she breathed. 

The shorter of the two nodded. “My name’s Rose, this is my sister Paige.”

“Richard and Patrick…”

Rose nodded. “Yeah, exactly,” she said, and suddenly her voice was much higher in pitch than it had been when Rey first met her, making the immortal woman wonder whether they’d been trying to sound like men throughout Ben’s trauma from earlier or if they’d been using their regular voices all along and she just hadn’t noticed. She had been rather preoccupied. 

Interrupting her thoughts, the older of the two sisters cleared her throat, and spoke up. “We want to come with you. We were caught on the battlefield. Well, I was, Rose just didn’t want to leave me behind, so… we’re making our way out of Gettysburg, away from General Meade and… somewhere else.”

“Wherever you and Ben are going… we’re in. We won’t bother you, we’ll pay you if you like, but we—“

Rey held up a hand. “I’ll stop you there, you can come… of course you can…” She turned her eyes on Ben, gaze flickering between the three for a moment before she sighed. “Do they know?”

“They know I can heal,” he replied, then he stepped forward past the Tico sisters, and rested his hands on her upper arms. By the mercy of all the gods she didn’t believe in, she repressed the shiver that threatened to run through her body as he touched her, and looked him in the eyes. “I won’t say anything else. Or anything about you.”

She looked at him apprehensively for a few seconds, then she nodded her approval. “Okay,” she said quietly, then she straightened her posture. “The train leaves in half an hour. It should be here to load up the passengers at any minute. When it gets here, we’ll board quickly and quietly, one of the rear cars away from the soldiers. We need to be invisible.”

“We can do that,” Ben promised her, then he was almost grinning again, and she gave him another confused stare. 

“What?”

“We won, Rey. The south surrendered today, and… we’ve defeated them before, but this time…” He shook his head, then he glanced back at Rose and Paige, who were readjusting their hair into their hats behind them, and nodded his head. “This time it feels different. It’s like something’s changed.”

“I know, I felt it, too, at the hospital. I’d had my doubts about a victory before, but now I’m starting to wonder… maybe things are about to change.”

“They might be,” he replied, then he pulled her into his arms again before he allowed himself to say anything else, and she melted into the embrace. “Thank you.”

Rey didn’t say anything in response to that, she simply held him as closely as he was holding her, and fisted her hands in the fabric of his jacket as she rested her face on the side of his shoulder. At last, the battle had been won, and they were at peace, but how long that would last, she hadn’t the slightest idea. They never tended to have long together, but she was absolutely determined to try and keep him in her sights for as long as she could. 

The war could try and claw him from her now. It was a fight the bastard thing would lose. 

After a while, she looked up as the sound of the approaching train entered her ears, and she locked eyes with Rose Tico as she conversed with her sister, the former of the two giving her a knowing stare of which she couldn’t decipher the meaning. All Rey knew was that she felt like the younger woman had just read her mind, as if she’d just seen a secret that she’d been trying to keep for so long, and just figured out how to unearth it. 

Whatever it was she had discovered though, Rey knew she wouldn’t dare speak it until they were alone. She didn’t know the other woman well, but she understood people like she knew the back of her own hand. They all followed similar patterns, and if Rose was going to say something about it, she would’ve done so already. 

*

Another hour later, they were on the train, sitting in a rear car as they all stared out the window. Well, everyone who wasn’t Ben. He’d fallen asleep almost the moment he’d sat down on the bench. Rose and Paige were technically still awake, but they’d sat down on the other side of the train car, leaving Rey free to just stroke his hair as he slept quietly on her shoulder. 

Ben slept quietly as the train trudged on through the night, and Rey looked over at Paige and Rose as she took one of his hands in hers to find both women staring at her with mischievous smiles on their faces. “What?”

“You two seem close,” Paige observed, then she folded her hands over her lap as she turned to face Rey full on. “I mean… you’re very familiar with one another.”

“We’ve known one another for a very long time,” Rey replied, clearing her throat. “He’s my closest friend.”

“Do you hold all of your friends like that?” Rose asked, inputting herself into the conversation. “You seem… you seem almost as if you’re… and I don’t mean to be rude… but you seem as if you’re… more intimate than that.”

Rey froze then, feeling as if she were a mortal on the wrong end of a weapon as the intent behind Rose’s earlier gaze at Gettysburg became true. “We’re not.”

The sisters looked at one another again disbelievingly, their stares unreadable as they looked at one another beneath their military issued caps. Rose turned back to her first. “I have eyes. And i have to ask… Have you two ever… been together?”

“Been together?”

“Have you and Ben ever lain together? In bed?”

Technically yes, but not in the way Rose was picturing. Still, Rey knew her cheeks flushed pink before she looked down, her eyes catching on their joined hands as she sighed. “We haven’t, no.”

Rose sat back, but Paige continued to stare at her mischievously. “But you want to?”

Ben stirred in his sleep, groaning softly as he flexed his grip on her hand, then released it. For a moment, she feared he was awake, but then a little snore escaped him, and she snorted quietly upon hearing it as she continued stroking his hair. “That’s a loaded question.”

“It wasn’t a question.” Paige fell quiet for a moment after that, but then she crossed her arms over her chest. “But… I can tell you’re hiding it. You both are. I’ve seen the way you look at one another.”

Rose nodded. “Me too, and we’ve only spent a few minutes with you both, but… we know Ben.” 

“You do?”

“Yeah… and the entire time we’ve known him, he’s talked about this woman he knows…” She laughed, watching Rey’s reaction curiously. “And he’s always said… ‘she’s just a friend,’ but…” Her gaze fell on the man using the other woman’s shoulder. “He had this wistful look in his eyes, and we both knew… we’ve always known… it’s more than that.”

“And we realized who you were the minute he stopped caring about his pain when he saw you. It was like that bullet didn’t matter, like it wasn’t killing him or— or whatever it was doing to him,” Paige continued. “And we both thought… there’s only one woman in the world who could put that kind of look on Ben’s face.”

Rey swallowed hard, but said nothing, falling silent as Ben shifted over her, seeming to come into wakefulness for a half second as he leaned over on the bench, a small noise escaping him as he rested his head on her lap. She gasped slightly, raising her hands in the air almost defensively as she watched him readjust himself, muttering something that sounded vaguely like her name before falling back into sleep. “Ben?” she asked quietly as she pressed her hand back onto his head, resuming the gentle stroking of his hair. 

He said nothing in response, and she sighed as she looked down at his deceptively youthful, sleeping face. With a nervous intake of breath, she looked back at Paige and Rose. “There’s… there are things you don’t know that… I can’t explain…”

Rose leaned forward eagerly. “Tell us,” she urged.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Please… there’s something about Ben, isn’t there?” Paige asked, gesturing to the man sleeping in Rey’s lap. “Something no one knows?”

All three women fell silent, listening to the sound of the train as they made their way through the Pennsylvania countryside. Rey watched Ben sleep for a moment as she tried to figure out a way to explain what had happened between them — to them. How did she put nine hundred years of their share history into one sentence? Or even several?

“You want to know who he is?” she asked them, not waiting for their response before she looked at the two women. “Who we both are? Because we’re not what you think. He’s no soldier, and I’m no nurse. We can masquerade as those things, but… it’s more than that.”

Rose’s eyes were full of concern and curiosity. “Who are you, then?”

“There’s a reason why Ben didn’t die earlier. Why he and I know each other so well…” She swallowed nervously, looking the women in the eyes one last time to gauge whether or not they were trustworthy before looking back down at the man sleeping in her lap. “Nearly a millennium ago… we were both struck by lightning. And ever since… I don’t know how to explain it, but we’ve been unable to die.”

“What?”

“We can’t die, and we can’t age, and if you don’t believe me…” Rey brushed a strand of hair from his face, unable to help the smile that bloomed on hers as she stared at it. “You both saw what happened to Ben.”

“He told us that he was just a really fast healer,” Paige breathed. 

“Do you believe it could be that simple?” Rey turned her eyes on the older of the sisters for a moment, doing her best to ignore the contented sigh that threatened to erupt from how much she was enjoying Ben’s warmth on her legs. “No… We both… How old do I look to you?”

“No more than twenty eight,” Rose answered simply, barely even taking the time to study Rey’s face to prove her theory. “Same with him. If you tried to tell me you were thirty, I would laugh in your face.”

Another nod. “Precisely, but as I said… it’s been nearly a millennium…” Rey paused upon hearing those words, then an involuntary, seemingly insane laugh erupted from her, though she kept it quiet. Waking Ben wasn’t exactly on her to do list. “God, we’re so  _ old _ . And yet each day I wake up and there are no lines on my face. No grey strands in my hair. No age spots. No… no aches and pains I should be getting from the passage of time, and Ben… Ben’s the same. Neither of us can age or die… no matter…”

Tears rose to her eyes as she thought of the first century she’d realized what had happened to her — of all the attempts she’d made to end her ceaseless existence, or all the attempts Ben had made to do the same. They had both suffered so much in those first two centuries they’d spent without one another. The day she’d met Ben had been the first time she’d smiled in decades. Their banter had made her feel not quite whole, but at least content, and it had allowed her to live peacefully for a little while longer until they ruined that tiny flicker of connection by fighting. 

“No matter how hard we try…” she continued, sniffling as she wiped away the tear on her cheek before it could fall onto Ben’s face and wake him up. “All we can do is keep living. We met for the first time when we were about two centuries old. Maybe a century and a half. I don’t… I’m not sure of my exact age, but… we met, and separated, and… and that’s how things have been ever since. Meeting, spending not nearly enough time together… and separating for decades, or sometimes more than a century. And when I saw him today…” Her voice broke as she looked down at him again. “It’s been ninety years. It’s been so long… But… whether it’s in the way you think it is or not… I love him, and… and I missed him. He’s my closest friend… and I’m going to try my hardest to stay by his side… We can’t part now… Not anymore… not again. Not by choice.”

“And all this…” Rose said after a moment, gesturing vaguely to Ben’s sleeping form. “It’s all real?

“All of it,” Rey promised her. “That’s why we left Gettysburg so quickly. We couldn’t risk anyone having seen Ben receive what should’ve been a fatal wound… So we escaped.”

Paige and Rose both blinked at her for a few seconds as they struggled to process all they just heard. Not that Rey could blame them. It had been quite a lot of information to comprehend, and for a moment, Rey feared neither Tico believed her, but then the former of the two nodded. “Okay… so where are we going now?”

“We’re going to lie low for a few months,” Rey told her, weaving her fingers casually through Ben’s hair as she stared out the window. “We hide, fight when we can, but lie low, then we go back in if the fight is still active.”

“So where are we going, then?” Paige asked.

Rey almost grinned as she watched the moon rise over the Pennsylvania woods. “We’ll see,” she said, then they all fell silent, and Ben slept peacefully on while their train chugged through the dark night. 

*

They wound up settling into an old house in a small, nearly forgotten town in the southwest corner of West Virginia, high in the eroded Appalachian mountains where no one could find them. Whenever the fight came near, they’d participate, but Ben, Rey, Paige, and Rose always kept weary, making sure that the General they’d served under was far away every time they ventured out. Eventually, they would return to the battle and the bloodshed, but they all knew that as much as they wanted to help, they needed to wait. 

The house they’d settled into was a quaint little thing, but it supported the four of them well enough. It was even hidden by dense woods, allowing them to forget that the war around them even existed for a while. 

It was the happiest Rey had been in centuries. 

After the train ride down, they’d both settled back into the comfortable rhythm they’d found in Portugal nearly four centuries earlier. Rey enjoyed reading the books Ben found on the shelf, and both of them would sweep each other into the stories they read. Some nights, they’d even read to one another as they sat on their little house’s front porch, and on occasions, the Ticos joined them. 

At one point, Ben taught Rose and Paige the ways of calligraphy, and soon enough, the two women were successfully writing letters to their families, letting them know the details of where they were and how they were doing. They’d even wound up becoming almost better at it than their teacher was, and Rey had laughed so aggressively hard when he realized it, and had looked at her helplessly. 

Things between her and Ben though were interesting. When they weren’t reading books or talking, he tended to keep a reasonable distance from her. They didn’t touch unnecessarily as much as they used to, she noticed, and he tended to blush whenever she held his hand, or embraced him during a heightened moment of joy. At night, they still shared a bed, and still held one another, but most days he refrained from giving her any of his forehead kisses, or even a kiss to the hand. 

It didn’t hit her until after he’d stopped just how much she was starting to rely on those kisses for a source of comfort. 

By the time summer turned into winter, Rey had grown all too curious about it, but didn’t call him out on his oddness. She didn’t even think about why he was behaving so strangely until he was reading to her one day in front of their fireplace, and the book started to get philosophical about love. Listening to his deep voice as it trembled slightly behind those stupidly red lips had her head spinning as she watched him from where she sat comfortably by his side on their living room floor. As he began the sixtieth chapter of  _ Pride and Prejudice,  _ she wondered if that feeling would ever stop. 

_ “Elizabeth’s spirits soon started to rise to playfulness again,”  _ Ben read aloud, then his gaze flickered briefly to her before he continued, and she smiled as his voice trembled upon reaching the end of that paragraph.  _ “‘How could you begin?’ said she. ‘I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?’” _

A blush crept up his cheeks then as he read the next line, and they became a soft shade of crimson that was beautiful in the firelight, but had Rey giggling as she propped herself up on her elbows, watching Ben curiously as he reacted to it. “What? What’s got you blushing like a virgin school boy?”

Ben quirked an eyebrow. “You and I both know I’m no virgin school boy.”

“You’re certainly acting like one. Come on, it’s just a novel, what’s got you so scandalized?” she asked, leaning over to crawl toward him and read the book for herself, when he suddenly held it high over his head, and looked down at her with a shit eating grin. “ _ Ben. _ ”

“Do you want to know what happens next or not, Rey?” he asked, a stern note to his voice that almost had her laughing again from how ill matched it was with the mischief in his eyes that sparked and crackled like the fire before them. 

With a groan, Rey flopped back down to the floor, and nodded. “Tell me what happens next.”

“It’s a very serious moment, Rey,” he assured her, his gaze falling back on the page that had caused him to blush. If she looked closely, she could see that it was still there, and she did look, but she ignored it in favor of knowing what it was that had made Ben blush the way he had. “Are you sure you’re ready?”

“I will be if you stop treating me like a child,” she teased. “I’m as old as you are.”

Ben looked like he wanted to tease her back for that, but then he closed his mouth, and cleared his throat instead before reading out the next passage.  _ “‘I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation,’”  _ he said with a trembling voice as he nervously adjusted the collar of his shirt. The tremor was slight, though, and if Rey hadn’t known him as well as she did, she probably wouldn’t have noticed it, but she did, and it sent shivers up her spine.  _ “It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew I had begun.’” _

There was a moment of silence after that. Rey felt her breath leave her in a shudder hearing those words, knowing immediately how deeply they resonated within her. She too didn’t know the moment she’d started to fall for Ben. Like Darcy, she was in the middle before she’d realized she’d begun. She had no hope of knowing just when things had truly started between them, only that now she was far too deep into the emotions she felt. 

But that didn’t explain why  _ Ben  _ was the one who was blushing. Even as he moved on from that one line, his cheeks still maintained their flush, and Rey started to wonder if it was possible that those words resonated as deep within his soul as they did in hers. 

That afternoon, they finished Jane Austen’s novel, and moved on to Frankenstein, which Rey started off reading to Ben. The Tico sisters joined them at some point, and together the four started off on a journey about monsters, the world around them forgotten for at least a little while as they rested in their peaceful but far too small bubble.

It was around that time, too, that his little touches made a gleeful return.

The turn of the year brought with it another shift. By March of 1864, the Union was doing well for itself in the war, and the end almost seemed as if it was a possibility on the distant horizon. It was around then that the four of them sat down over dinner one night, and began to discuss how they would rejoin the battle as the soldiers they once were — but under different aliases, of course. 

Days later, a plan was set in motion. Rose decided she would join Rey in her mission to work as a nurse, following closely everywhere she went. She’d had enough of being a target out on those battlefields, she’d said, and the immortal woman couldn’t blame her. Neither woman would stay anywhere long though; they’d both move wherever Paige and Ben’s army took them. It was going to be a difficult process, but in the chaos of the war, blending in wasn’t going to be difficult. 

They left the comfort of their West Virginia home in late April of 1864, traveling to Chattanooga to join forces with the army of General Sherman. They managed to successfully blend in fairly quickly, and as Sherman began marching the Union army south toward Atlanta, they marched right along with him. 

Their first foray into Georgia led to several hit or miss battles, some of which they won, and some they lost, but none of them were particularly upset with the losses. All that mattered was that they still had each other; that Ben wasn’t gone and Rose and Paige would get to live full lives. At least, it was that way until the twenty seventh of June, when suddenly that peace they’d built was irreversibly shattered. 

Rey and Rose were working in a makeshift hospital as the latest battle on Kennesaw mountain raged around them. Cannon fire caused the earth to tremble every five minutes, rendering patient care phenomenally difficult, but still both women tried their hardest to help. Sweat was bearing on their brows from the heat, and she’d never been more exhausted in her life, but the dead and wounded just kept on coming in in droves. It wasn’t quite as intense as Gettysburg or the bloodshed at Antietam had been, but it was still a horrific sight to behold. 

It only grew worse when she heard the doors to the hospital burst open just as she was finishing the stitches on a soldier’s wound. At first she thought nothing of it, but then she heard a voice cry out her name in anguish. “ _ Rey!”  _

Her head snapped up then, and she cut the string of the soldier’s stitches just as she began searching urgently for the source of the voice. It didn’t take her long to find it, though, for within seconds, Ben’s large frame entered her field of vision, moving toward her at an almost inhuman speed as he carried a bloody, dirty looking bundle in his arms that moaned and groaned with every step. Her blood ran cold when she recognized the face behind all the red, and she rushed forward to meet him, helping to support Paige Tico’s head as she led him over to a spare cot. 

“What happened?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady as he laid Paige down on the flat surface of the cot. “Where is she hit?”

Ben swallowed as she began inspecting Paige’s body, seeing where she was struck and by what. Already she could see a tiny piece of shrapnel embedded near her collar bone, and burns covering her face. Bullet holes speckled themselves on her right side, but not in excess as much as the massive crimson stain had led her to believe. The stains coated her uniform, darkening the navy almost to black, but it wasn’t until Rey reached her legs that she realized the true extent of her injuries, because the other woman no longer had a left leg — all she had was a bloody stump starting at the middle of her thigh. 

Nausea overwhelmed her for the first time in ages, and for once she thought she might actually throw up, but she didn’t have time for that. She had to try to save Paige’s life, even though it looked impossible. It was a miracle that the woman was still alive at all, never mind her survival after this. 

Rey’s breathing grew unsteady as her eyes unfocused. She was aware that Ben was saying something to her, but all she could think was how impossible it was. There would be no saving Paige Tico. It was obvious just looking at her. She’d lost too much blood, and both she and Ben were coated in it. Already she could see Paige growing paler and weaker; in too much pain to even attempt a scream. Her eyes were drifting shut, her head lolling to the side as she began to lose the fight for her life. 

At that point, the best thing Rey could’ve done for her was to just end it before it got worse. Tears sprang to her eyes as she looked down at Paige, recalling all the times they’d had together thus far, and the months they’d spent in the mountains of West Virginia. That had been the last time they were truly happy. That had been a song of sweet relief, but all too soon it was over, and all because they’d decided they couldn’t let the war go on around them without trying to help. 

It was brave. It was the right and honorable thing to do, but… god damn her if she wasn’t feeling the full force of regret within her soul. 

“Rey,” Ben breathed, snapping her back to reality wwith another abrupt cry of her name. “What can we do?” 

Tears threatened to break free as she turned toward him, shaking her head as she met his gaze. “Nothing.”

“What?” His voice suddenly gained the same, trembling, heartbroken quality that hers had. “Nothing? Are you… no… no — there has to be something. We… we can’t let her die like this.” He began searching the room again with his eyes, a desperation in his quick, shaky movements as he looked for something he couldn’t seem to find. “Where’s Rose?”

“Out on a supply run,” Rey replied, reaching for her scalpel as she spoke. “Oh, god, she’s going to come back and see this… It’s going to…” Sobs escaped her throat then as she looked at Ben. “This’ll kill her.”

Ben’s own tears spilled out onto his cheeks as he stepped closer to her. “I know, but… you’re right, we have to.” With that, he reached for the scalpel she held in her hand, taking it from her gently as she stared down at Paige. 

“Ben, what are you…?”

“A century ago you killed someone to prevent me from having to have their blood on my hands,” he told her, his voice shakier than ever as he gripped the scalpel. “Today… today I’m returning the favor, though…” He almost laughed. “What a terrible favor it is.”

Rey shook her head as tears spilled out onto her cheeks. “You don’t have to do this,” she protested, resting her hand over his. “I don’t want to, but I will…”

“Rey, the longer we argue about it, the more she suffers.”

“But, Ben—“

A throat cleared below them, and they both looked down to see Paige’s eyes flicker open, and she gave them a heavy sigh through her burnt lips. “Do it together,” she told them, then she nodded weakly. “It’s okay. I… I want you to do it.”

Rey’s heart broke into a million more shards than it already had, but she looked back at Ben, and through just their eyes alone, they came to the agreement that they’d do it together. With a shuddering breath, Rey gripped his hand, and guided their joined fingers over to Paige’s neck. The woman on the cot closed her eyes in anticipation, and Rey watched a discolored tear make its way down her cheek. 

Both she and Ben struggled to hold back their sobs as they brought the scalpel to her skin, pausing for one last, final moment before they plunged it inside, and Paige cried out as suddenly a new wave of pain filled her body. The two immortals standing over her both clenched their eyes shut, their hands holding onto each other tighter than ever as they removed the scalpel from her neck, fresh blood escaping from the wound as the blade made its way out. 

An involuntary sob left Rey’s throat as she opened her eyes, and as she looked into Paige’s, her friend gave her a tragic nod while her eyes began to drift shut. Crimson stained the cot as her chest rose and fell with her last breaths, and Rey felt more anguish than she could’ve anticipated fill her as the older Tico’s entire body slowly went limp, and her chest fell but did not rise. 

Paige Tico was dead, and Rey sobbed again as the scalpel fell from her hands, and she turned into Ben to wrap her arms around his neck as she buried her face in his shoulder, and cried openly. Seconds later, she felt his wrap around her waist, and his own sobs shook his chest as he held her close while they both mourned the loss of their friend. 

As long as she lived, she was never going to forget Paige and her bravery, she was never going to forget the look in her eyes as she told them to do it, and she was always going to remember her hand wrapped around Ben’s while they both slowly pushed the scalpel into her skin, while they lost so much of what they’d built in nearly a year of being together. 

Paige was a ghost to her now. She was another face that would haunt her in the night, and as long as she lived, that would never change.

“It’s okay,” Ben whispered into her ear as he held her close amidst the chaos, the screams and cries of the wounded filling her ears louder than ever before. “It’s okay…” Which one of them he was trying to convince with that statement though, she couldn’t be sure. Either way, she was content to hold him and cry for as long as time would allow them to. As far as she was concerned; the world owed them an eternity to mourn. 

*

It was another half an hour before Rose returned to the hospital, and by then Rey had been forced to return to tending to her patients, and Ben had helped her to carry Paige’s body over to the side where they were keeping the dead. Together, they’d draped a sheet over her body, and that had been when her younger sister had returned to the church. 

The instant Rose saw the tears in their eyes and the sheet still in their hands, she’d known exactly who had died. An anguished scream had escaped her as she collapsed to the ground in front of them, then she crawled forward to cradle her sister’s body in her arms, holding Paige through the sheet as tightly as she could. 

All Ben and Rey could do was watch as Rose’s world was altered the exact same way theirs had been, and silently, she reached for his hand once more while they took another stolen moment to mourn their lost friend. It wasn’t fair. It never would be fair, but Paige was far from the first person they’d ever lost, and she was not going to be the last. 

As his thumb swept over hers, Ben sighed over the sound of Rose’s sobs. “I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered, squeezing her hand a little more tightly, though he didn’t look at her. “I’m glad I got another year with you.”

Rey nodded her agreement, though she didn’t look at him either. “Me too,” she said quietly, then they fell silent again, and watched as Rose mourned her fallen sister, and the tide made another violent shift. 

*

Another five months after that, they decided to make a brief separation again in Atlanta. It would just be for a month, Ben had promised her, just while he was following General Sherman down to Savannah to intimidate the confederates. For just five months, he would go down with the General, keeping touch with Rey and Rose while they helped work at one of the hospital’s outside of Georgia’s transportation hub to bring about some sort of relief against all the violence and bloodshed. 

They parted ways this time on November fifteenth, and neither one of them could muster a smile as Rey walked him down to his rendezvous point with the army. Neither of them knew what to say in the first place though; they were too far beyond words. They’d said goodbye enough times. 

Rose was already back at the hospital again, working diligently away as she waited for her friend to return. Over the past several months since Paige’s death, she’d become an impressive student, curing more patients than most other nurses she’d seen across the wars. It was as if she were trying to atone for her sister’s death, though she’d played no part in it. 

That left her and Ben to walk up through the trees to where the northern army was preparing to lay siege to the city of Atlanta, both of their hearts heavy as they passed an old oak with low hanging branches, both of them desperately wanting to say something — 

“Rey,” Ben said after the tension had grown so thick, she thought she might be able to actually cut it with a knife. They stopped walking then, and Ben stepped between her and the tree, taking one of her hands in his. “It can’t end like this.”

She shook her head. “This isn’t an ending, remember? We’ve agreed to a life together now… you’re coming back. You’ll see me in a few weeks.”

“Maybe so, but… I can’t part ways with you in silence. We’ve both seen what this war has done…” He gripped her hand a little more tightly as he stepped closer, and suddenly he towered over her, his shadow blocking much of the daylight from the overcast sky. “We’ve almost lost each other more times than we can ever know.”

He was right, and she knew he was. Still, she was notoriously stubborn, and she tried to pull her hand out of his, but he held it tighter. “Ben…”

“You mean the world to me, you know,” he told her, his voice trembling slightly as he spoke. “I… I just mean… No one’s ever had… you’re my greatest friend, and… I just wanted you to hear that one more time before I go.”

Her jaw fell slack. “You… Ben… I can’t let you…”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he told her, putting his other hand up in surrender, then he let go of hers, and stepped back. “But I’ll miss you when I’m gone… I’ll be thinking of you… and Rose everyday.”

“I appreciate it,” she told him, then he took her hand into his again, and bent down, pressing her fingers gently to his lips in a lingering hint of a kiss that sent her mind back three centuries to Venice when he’d done the same thing. “I’ll miss you, too.” She tried her hardest to keep her voice from cracking, and at first, she thought she’d succeeded. 

The look on his face told her otherwise as he squeezed her hand, then prepared to leave just like he had in Venice, only… only this time he had a sorrowful look in his eyes. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

His eyes were haunted as he stared at her, and she felt the ache that had slowly been developing in her chest grow larger. It couldn’t end like this. After all they’d been through, after eight hundred years of hell, it wouldn’t end like this. She wouldn’t let it. 

Rey looked down at the hand that was holding hers, then with her heart fluttering in her chest so rapidly she feared it might fall out and end her life, her eyes found themselves wandering to his lips. She’d thought about those lips far more often than she’d cared to admit over the centuries. Over eight hundred and fifty two years she had spent nights haunted by dreams of them, of what it’d feel like just once to press them against hers. 

Part of her wanted to lean in — wanted to take her time enjoying this, building up to the first true and real kiss between them, but she remembered vividly what had happened the last time they’d done that. They’d been brutally interrupted by gunfire, and she didn’t want them to be interrupted again. If she wanted to kiss him now, she needed to initiate it quickly and suddenly, but with every ounce of passion she felt. They’d built up to this kiss a century ago in a little tent in the Pennsylvania woods before putting it on pause. Now, in the outskirts of Atlanta, they were going to pick up exactly where they left off. 

In a sudden burst of courage, she yanked on his hand, pulling him forward so that he stumbled, and she caught his head with her other hand as she pulled him into a kiss. Ben seemed to freeze at first, but then he melted into her touch, his arms wrapping around her waist as her hand threaded itself through his hair. His lips were warm and soft against hers—if slightly chapped from his time on the battlefield—and she felt like she was floating as his arms held her tight against him. She felt like this moment would never end. 

Despite their inability to die, Ben kissed her as if he wouldn’t see tomorrow, and as she deepened the kiss he moaned softly into her mouth, the sound searing itself onto her memory for centuries to come. In a matter of seconds, eight centuries of pent up sexual tension unloaded itself, and as Ben lifted her from the ground and pressed her against the tree they were under, she found herself astoundingly disappointed that there were so many layers between them. 

One of Ben’s legs pressed gently between hers, the hard muscle of his thigh brushing up against her—a sensation that went right to her groin despite many layers of skirts—and she only just resisted the urge to grind down on him. A small part of her mercifully remembered that they were still somewhat in public, and they barely even had time for the kiss they were currently sharing. 

Ben’s tongue swept along the entrance of her mouth, and she allowed him access as she leaned her head back against the bark of the tree. She unintentionally moaned into the kiss, a sound which no doubt he had stored into his own memory as he clutched her just a pinch more tightly. The thought had her mouth nearly twitching into a smile, and her hands let go of his hair to clutch his shoulders as they continued kissing like they didn’t need oxygen—since in truth, they had absolutely no need for air. 

Unfortunately, being immortal didn’t mean they were able to ignore the time constraints of the people around them. A distant drum beat sounded, and suddenly their spell was broken. It was time for him to march. 

Ben broke away from her far too quickly. Both of them were phenomenally out of breath as they pulled apart, and he set her back down on the ground. His eyes were almost completely black as he looked down at her, and she suddenly felt intimidated by that gaze as the gravity of what they’d just done settled in. 

“I… I just…” she wasn’t sure what compelled her to say it other than the overwhelming fear that they were about to dive over a great precipice settling over her, “I’m sorry, I’m not thinking straight. It’s just a kiss goodbye.”

He nodded urgently, though he almost looked as if he were trying to hide a smile as he stared at her in disbelief. “Yes! Right, of course, um… I… I have to go…”

“Right, to… to defeat the south and be… victorious…” She was still thoroughly out of breath from the kiss, and blushed as she realized how red and swollen his lips were. Certainly she was no better. “Just…” She tightened her grip on the fabric of his coat as her voice broke. “Just make sure you don’t die, okay? Don’t get hurt?”

“I promised you that a year ago. I’m keeping my word.”

“And come back in a few months? Weeks if you can?” 

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then he pulled back, and nodded. “Rey, I’ll find you, I always do. And even if it takes me a century, I’ll see you again.” With a shaky exhale, his lips twitched into a hint of a deliciously kiss swollen smile. “I’ll come back for you. Don’t go anywhere.”

“I won’t,” she promised, then he stepped back from her at long last, then her arms unwrapped themselves from him, and he gave her another nod. 

“I’ll see you on the other side of the war,” he replied, then he finally turned and walked away, allowing Rey the time to properly lean back against the tree and sigh. 

“I’ll see you on the other side of the war.” With that, she sank to the roots of the tree, and pressed her fingertips gingerly to her lip as she helplessly smiled, watching Ben’s tall form move through the woods until she couldn’t see him anymore, and the ghost of his kiss faded from her lips. 

That kiss played itself on a loop in her mind; every single second of it had been preserved in perfect detail, and she would never forget the first time she kissed Ben Solo for as long as she lived. It was life changing, erotic, exhilarating, and passionate all in one. It was so many words humanity didn’t even have a name for yet, and suddenly she was filled with a desire to chase after him and do it all over again. 

Another kiss, however, would have to wait just a few more weeks. If she loved Ben, she had to let him do what he had to do, and she couldn’t ask him to stay behind just because she was in love with him. No, he was using his immortality to help people. He was using it to save lives, and so she let him walk away, and let the Union army march south. She would see him again — he’d promised her that — and the second she did… 

The tide between them was going to shift again, and it was going further inland than ever before. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY KISSED.


	18. Charleston, South Carolina, 1917 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry this took so long, y'all. I had finals, and then I wanted to wrap up What Happens in Canto Bight and my gift exchange fic for TWD's anniversary, and THEN I wound up in New York (your mans met Adam Driver, he's the sweetest guy) and well? I only just got the free time to write another chapter. Anyway, it's here now, sorry for taking so long, hopefully the next one will come more quickly, but thank you all so much for waiting.

Their separation wound up lasting a great deal more than just a few weeks. By the time Ben returned to Atlanta, Rey had left the hospital, and a different staff had taken over. He’d asked around the city for signs that anyone had seen her, but by February of 1865, she was still nowhere to be seen, and he developed a sinking feeling in his gut that he’d just have to wait for her to return to him again. 

That first day without her had indisputably been the hardest. Once he realized she was gone, he slumped against the wall of the nearest building, and sat down on the dirty street while people young and old passed him by. The city was still largely in tatters. Various buildings still stood semi-charred by smoke, and the entire world around him seemed to smell as if it had been on fire since the dawn of time. It was that scent that had him longing for the smell of the humid, pure woods when he’d last seen Rey — that had him remembering what had happened the last time he’d seen her. 

For centuries he could no longer count on one hand, he’d been wondering what it would be like to kiss her. He’d had thoughts about Rey in the dark of the night that he didn’t dare to speak aloud to anyone — only offering a hint of it to Rose and Paige Tico one night after they’d met at the battle of Antietam — and he'd certainly dreamt about such a thing. He’d definitely made an attempt that one morning they’d woken up together in her tent during the war for America’s freedom, but… he’d never thought it would happen like that. 

He never could’ve imagined that Rey would knock him off balance and pull his lips down to hers, never could’ve anticipated how her hand would feel in his hair as she gripped him tight, kissing him like he was the air she breathed. As Ben leaned against the charred wall in the outskirts of what had once been a bustling transportation hub, he gingerly let his fingers skim over his lower lip, remembering how it felt to pick her up, and press her against that tree; how fast his heart had beat — how much adrenaline had filled him. 

In all his nine hundred years of life… he’d never felt so alive. 

When she’d pulled away, though, she’d told him it was just a kiss goodbye, and his heart had plummeted in his chest.  _ Oh _ , it was just a spur of the moment decision; an impulse. It didn’t have any deeper meaning, did it? But how could it mean nothing when no one else had ever kissed him like that? Ben was old, impossibly old, and he had kissed men and women a time or two over the near millenium he’d been alive, but none of them had ever made him feel as if he’d finally been able to stop running from something. 

None of them had ever felt like coming home after a while away. He didn’t even know what home was. He didn’t know what that meant to him, having moved around so much, but  _ hell,  _ he wagered that fluttering in his chest came pretty close to imitating it. 

Whatever that meant didn’t matter. If Rey was only interested in a friendship with him, then he couldn’t say anything to ruin it, lest he run the risk of them going another two centuries without each other while they tried to move on from the awkwardness. Having her back in his life was more important to him than telling her how he felt, and he had a feeling that she’d probably want the same thing. Wouldn’t she?

So Ben spent the next fifty three years wandering around the country trying to find her. He searched the western territories as they slowly became states, and searched north and south, but found nothing, there was no trace of Rey. By the time the century turned again, he was starting to lose hope, and he spent most of his days alone and adrift in the various hotels of the eastern coast of the United States, burying himself in isolation and alcohol as he fought off memories of her and the wars he’d survived. 

At one point, he became rather notorious at a bar in Charleston, and wound up settling in there permanently in April of 1912, right around the time that the sinking of the Titanic made headlines globally. The first time he saw that paper, he wondered if Rey had heard about the ship’s tragic fate, wondered if she was out there thinking on how tragic it all was the same way he had, but he shoved those thoughts aside. They weren’t doing him any good. He didn’t need to drink more than he already was. 

It wasn’t long after that when he settled into an house overlooking the Atlantic, and spent his nights staring out at the ocean with his brandy instead of the bar. Every single time he finished a day, Ben crossed his arms, and leaned against the iron railing of his temporary home, watching as the waves crashed onto the shore. Thoughts of Portugal filled his head half the time; making him recall laughing in the saltwater with Rey, tasting the tang of it on his tongue as the two rolled playfully in the waves.

Standing there on his balcony in 1912, nearly five centuries later, he could still taste it if he closed his eyes. 

And he lived like that for the next five years, going about his business and living his life as normally as he could as he waited for the day when their paths would inevitably converge again; when they would finally stop being separated by the cruel expanse of time. Of course, that plan was put on hold the day that president Woodrow Wilson announced the United States would be joining the great war plaguing the world. At first, he’d been hesitant to join forces in the war, a part of him wanting selfishly to sit there and wait for Rey, but another… another all to eager to help better the world in any way he could. 

That had led Ben to enlist in the U.S Military one day in late November, 1917 — November thirtieth, to be precise — when he decided the time had come for him to use his immortality as a force for good once more. They’d been all too eager to accept him — the army had desperately needed men — and so just ten days before Christmas — a holiday he frequently ignored — Ben was putting on his uniform for the first time, preparing to walk out in it on the streets of Charleston on the day before he was set to deploy. He was going to have to get used to the damn thing anyway, and hated dearly how stiff the fabric was. There wasn’t exactly room for him to be picky about it, but he wasn’t going into battle without breaking the damn thing in first. 

Of course… the day before he went off to war would be the day he finally found her again, wouldn’t it?

He walked into the bar that afternoon just like he would on any other day, but instantly the atmosphere was different. The setting sun’s light had recently been snuffed out by that of a thunderstorm rolling into the Atlantic, and the war looming over everyone’s heads set a rather somber mood for the evening as he walked in. His uniform certainly wasn’t making things better, he figured.

Still, he strode quietly into the bar, ignoring the eyes that fell onto his tall form and the quieted whispers that filled the room as he made his way toward the rear of the bar to order a drink. Without him having to say a word, the man behind it handed him a glass of brandy, and gave him a somber nod. Breathing in deeply, Ben returned it, then he made his way toward the other side of the restaurant to sip his drink in peace while he watched the waters outside grow violent, waves crashing a bit too close to the street for comfort in the winds of the storm. 

It was sort of ominous, really. It felt as if the storm was a sign of something bad coming… no… not bad, but… there was change coming in with the high tide, and it loomed over him like a massive shadow. In front of him, the door to the bar opened, but he was only vaguely aware of it as he watched lightning strike over the sea, seeming to hit the crest of a distant wave perfectly in the seconds before he heard the boom of the thunder. For a moment, though, the wind and the rain outside came flooding in, and the crowd grew a bit louder until the door closed behind whoever had just walked in. 

As the patrons settled down from their weather induced shock, Ben finally turned his head to see just who had caused such a noise, and he was shocked to see two well dressed — but certainly not wealthy — women walk into the bar with their hands clutched to small little black hats, keeping them pinned firmly to their heads. Thanks to said head wear, he couldn’t see their faces, only the colors of their dresses and their coats. The taller of the two wore green, an emerald shade reminiscent of one he’d once bore witness to in Portugal, making him wonder if maybe, just maybe he’d found her after all this time. The other was in a muted pink, and kept her head down beneath gloved hands that made it impossible to tell anything about her as she and the first woman sat down together in the corner.

Ben sipped his brandy, watching them intently — though he tried not to be obvious about it — as the taller woman summoned over a waiter, and he caught a tiny glimpse of her freckled features and tanned skin, then hazel eyes he knew like the back of his own hand. His breath caught in his throat, and his drink fell from his hand as he realized it was her, and the world fell out from under him. It was Rey. After fifty more stupid years and a lifetime of waiting, he’d found her again… just before he was going to leave. 

The universe had never been so cruel. 

He had half a mind to walk out of there and forget he’d ever seen her — to move on and wait until after the war, after all of this was over and he could see her for more than a day — but then her head snapped in his direction the moment she heard the sound of his glass shattering; then her eyes went wide, and the entire world was frozen for a moment as they looked at one another. Even from this short distance, he could see her chest heave as she took in a deep breath, recognition shown vividly on her face as she took in the sight of him, her eyes drifting down to his uniform, then back up to his as she stood up abruptly. 

Ben quickly followed suit, standing swiftly and forcefully enough that he nearly knocked his chair astride, then he stepped out from the confines of his little table, and watched as she did the same, the woman sitting at the table next to her staring at them from beneath her hat in confusion. For a few seconds they stood there just gaping at one another; neither of them moving or breathing, just staring, taking in one another as their most recent reunion began. 

Tension began building in the air like the storm outside, and suddenly Ben was breathing again. Not only was he breathing, but he was rushing forward, making his way over the broken glass that had once held his brandy at the same time as she surged forward from her seat on the other side of the restaurant. There was a flicker in the lighting that accompanied one of the storm’s many powerful bolts of electricity, but he paid no mind to it; his attention was fully on Rey as he finally collided with her. His arms swept around her waist, pulling her close to him as his name fell from her lips, and her hands came up to encompass his back while she rested her chin on his shoulder. “Ben,” she breathed, saying his name like it was something holy. “Ben, Ben, Ben…”

“Oh my god, I missed you,” he whispered, feeling a sudden onslaught of tears rise to his eyes as he pressed a kiss into her hair, then he placed a hand on the back of her head, caressing it gently as he listened to the sound of the rain pouring outside harmonizing with Rey’s breathy little sobs as she muttered her sweet greetings into his ears.

“What the hell happened?” she replied, pulling back, allowing him to hear the tears in her voice; to see them in her eyes as she spoke. “Ben, I left you a letter explaining where I was… why didn’t you find me?”

He shook his head as a tear of his own spilled out onto his cheek. “There was no letter.”  _ God _ , had his voice ever trembled so much in his life? “I came back and there was no trace of you, Rey… you were gone.” 

“That shouldn’t have happened... I left it with a nurse, someone I trusted… and Rose and I headed north again. We were summoned, they needed volunteers in Chattanooga and we… We went because we thought…” She paused, swallowing back a lump in her throat as tears streaked through the hint of red rouge staining her cheeks. “Ben… we—” 

Before she could say anything else, a throat cleared nearby, and both of them turned their heads to see the entire restaurant was staring at them, watching their passionate reunion with blinking, disbelieving eyes. He felt a blush creep up his cheeks as he looked at them, then back at her, and they held a silent conversation with their eyes. 

Catching up was going to have to wait for when they were alone and not under the scrutinizing eyes of an audience. 

The sound of the pouring rain grew louder around them for a moment as they both nodded to one another, then Ben leaned forward a little. “I have a home two buildings down on the left. A small house, you can’t miss it. Meet me there when you’re done?”

“Okay, I’ll be there,” she promised, then she reached down briefly, and squeezed his hand. “I… I’ll see you in a little while, then?”

Her voice was so cautious, so hesitant, it nearly made him burst into tears all over again. “Yeah,” he replied, then he stepped away again. “Meet me there after dark, I’m sure you don’t want anyone seeing you.”

“I don’t care if they see me, I’m just passing through Charleston anyway.” She stepped back regardless, then gestured to the woman behind her, who was still peering cautiously at him from beneath her hat. “I’ll take Maz home and meet you there.”

“Maz?”

“I’ll explain later,” she replied, then she retreated further. “But… I’m so glad you’re here, Ben.”

Ben gave her a weak smile, but nodded. “I am, too,” he nearly croaked, but by some sort of almost religious mercy, he managed to keep his voice steady. “I’ll see you.” Then he spared the broken glass by his seat one last glance as the restaurant went back to business as usual, and made his way out of it, and into the pouring rain, allowing it to drench him as he ran down the street. 

He barely processed the restaurant door shutting behind him he was so determined to get there quickly. Now that Rey was there he had to get a fire going; had to make sure the place was nice and warm for when she got there so that they could chat comfortably and he wouldn’t have to watch her shiver. 

_ Or,  _ said a mischievous corner of his brain,  _ let it be cold so she seeks out warmth.  _

Ben almost laughed at the thought.  _ No.  _ He couldn’t do that to Rey. She’d said she wasn’t interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with him. Well, she’d… claimed she had no such feelings, at least. If he were being perfectly honest with himself, he wasn’t quite sure just what she felt for him. There was no way of knowing, and there wouldn’t be until he asked her or perhaps if she brought it up. 

Either way, he was going to set up a fire in his fireplace, and the two of them were going to do their usual routine of talking and catching up on what they’d missed over the past fifty four years since they’d parted. 

Half an hour later, Ben was sitting on a chair in his uniform in front of the fire, stoking it with a poker as the storm raged on outside his little house. Rey still hadn’t shown yet, and last time he’d looked out onto the street, he’d seen no sign that anyone was leaving the restaurant, but he supposed it was possible he could’ve missed her exit. All he could do from there was sit with a restless sense of anticipation building within him.

If more time had gone by, he was certain he would’ve started to sweat, but luckily, just after he’d removed his uniform’s coat, he heard the sound of knuckles tapping on his door, and Ben rushed to stand. He made his way to the door in record time, and pulled it open as casually as he could manage to see Rey standing there on the other side, shivering from the damp cold outside. “Hello,” he breathed, then he stepped back, and allowed her to come inside, hearing the faint sounds of water dripping off of her coat. “Are you al—“

He didn’t quite get the sentence finished, before he could, Rey launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around him forcefully as she buried her face in his shoulder, and a quiet sob escaped her lips as his own arms encompasses her waist. “Ben, I’m so sorry,” she whispered, sniffling quietly as she pulled back. “Back in Atlanta… we thought you’d get our message. When too much time passed and you didn’t follow us, we tried heading back down south, but… there was no sign of you.”

“I know, I’m so sorry,” he breathed, pressing another kiss into her hair. “Rey, I… god damn it I never should’ve left in the first place.” He wanted to say more, but he could feel her shivering in his arms as they talked, and he could hear the warm fire crackling in the background. With a disgruntled sigh, he pulled away from her, and gestured toward it. “Why don’t we talk over there?”

“Th-that’s probably a good idea.” She giggled nervously as he led her over to the living room, where two lounge chairs sat waiting for them, with Ben’s coat draped over one and nothing on the other. Rey then took the one with nothing on it, and shivered slightly as she raised her hands over the warm fire. 

Sympathy shot through him as he watched her, wondering just what the hell she’d been through over the past fifty years since they’d been unwillingly separated. The last time such a thing had happened had been Portugal, and back then only one of them had wanted to leave. This time, neither of them had, and all that led to had been sheer and utter misery thanks to the tragic accident in miscommunication. They were supposed to have been together all that time, but thanks to this terrible change in fate, that hadn’t been the case. 

“Hold on, I’ll get you a blanket,” he told her, then he made his way back into his bedroom to find something for her to wrap herself in. His heart began pounding in his chest as he walked inside, finding a warm, thick blanket folded at the edge of his bed almost immediately. Relief coursed through him as he picked it up, and spared a glance at the seemingly boring bed, wondering if maybe, just maybe, they’d wind up using it that night. They probably would. He didn’t exactly have a guest room and they always slept together when they happened to meet. The entire, delightful almost year they’d spent in West Virginia, he and Rey has slept in the same bed like an old, married couple. He was fairly certain that by the time they rejoined the war effort, Rose and Paige Tico had thought they were making love on a nightly basis. 

Unfortunately, they most definitely were not, as much as Ben wished they were. _ Maybe one day _ , he thought as he made his way back out into the living room, and draped his blanket over Rey’s shoulders. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly as he moved around, and sat by the other chair in front of the fire. 

“It’s no problem, Rey,” he assured her. “I didn’t want to see you cold.”

“It’s not as if it can harm me.”

“No, but… it’s difficult to see the ones you— people you care about… suffering.” He put his hands on his knees, knuckles clenching slightly as he gripped them, and took in a deep breath. “But that’s not what I want to talk about, and as you’ve probably guessed by the uniform, we don’t have much time.”

Rey’s eyes fell on the coat slung casually over the seat back behind him, then they drifted back to his. “You’re leaving again.”

He nodded. “I am, I joined before I found you. I’d… I’d started to think it would be another fifty years.”

A sniffle came from her in response, then she reached up a hand, and caught a forming tear on her thumb. “So did I.”

“ _ Shit _ , Rey, what happened to us?”

“Ben, we never should’ve parted,” she said suddenly. “We should’ve joined another group, or we should’ve found that cabin again and read Jane Austen until even our life spans ran out, but we never should’ve parted. The rest of the war… the rebuilding of the country from its own ashes…? It was a miserable enough experience already, but… I feel like if I’d had you there, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad.”

“I felt the same way,” Ben admitted, reaching out across the space between their armchairs to offer her his hand. He then waited until she took it before he spoke again, saying his words with his eyes directed at the fire rather than his friend. “But it wasn’t our fault this time. It was beyond our control. Rey… we couldn’t have known this would happen. There was… there was no way for us to be certain.”

Another sniffle, then a nod, and he looked her in the eyes then, feeling tears prickle at his own as they looked at one another, mutually grieving the time they’d been separated. “But now you’re going away again…” She shook her head, and laughed almost sarcastically. “Right when I find you; it’s when you’re leaving again, and I won’t see you for another fifty years, will I?”

There was a moment of silence that fell over them both as they realized she was right, and they were about to run the risk of losing each other all over again. Unless… “Not if we keep in contact again,” he suggested, then he leaned toward her slightly as he squeezed her hand. “Rey, give me your address and I swear, I’ll mail you the second I’m there.”

“Ben…” Her voice was hesitant, untrusting, and he couldn’t blame her one bit after all they’d went through. They’d tried mailing one another before, and they’d succeeded for nearly fifty years before the system had somehow failed them. “How do we know we’ll get those letters? How do we know this’ll work?”

“We don’t,” he admitted, running his thumb over the back of hers. “But we have to try. It’s better than nothing.”

“Or you could stay.” Her voice was now strong determined. She was asking without begging, almost suggesting without asking; making sure he knew he could choose whatever he wanted with her words.

He loved her even more for it. 

“Rey…”

“Ben, please. How many wars have you fought in? How many people have you helped?”

“I can’t abandon this. I already made my promise. I have my uniform.”

Rey sighed as she sank back in the armchair, but nodded solemnly. “It was worth a try.”

“I appreciate the effort,” he replied, ceasing the movement of his thumb over hers as she looked at him with those beautifully hopeful eyes. “But I have to do this.”

“I know.”

“At least this time we know we’ll see each other again after the goodbye.” He looked back out at the fire, watching it crackle and burn as it raged in front of them. “Unlike last time…”

Her breathing hitched at the mention of their previous goodbye, and Ben couldn’t help but feel an odd sense of hope brewing within him as he listened to the crackling fire and the rain while they provided their music in the background. “Last time… last time we thought we’d see each other again immediately.”

“We did, but we didn’t.”

“And we…” She took in a deep, shaky breath, and he knew what she was thinking about without her having to say it.  _ The kiss.  _

“We kissed,” Ben said plainly, then he paused, correcting himself. “Or… you kissed me.”

At this, Rey froze, her entire body growing tense as she suddenly downcast her eyes toward the fire. For some reason, it seemed that she was dreading talking about it as much as he was, but he was so curious as to why she’d left him like that fifty years prior. He had to know. He had to. “I did.”

“Why?” He asked, then he put a hand up before she could reply. “Rey, I know you said it was a goodbye kiss, but… I still don’t understand…” How did he ask her why she’d kissed him in such a specifically passionate way when it was supposedly just a friendly kiss goodbye? 

“I don’t know,” she replied, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she let go of his hand, and folded her arms over her chest, making him mourn the loss of the contact. “I just…” She shook her head fervently. “Forget it. It was nothing, it meant nothing. Why do you want to know?”

It meant _nothing?_ Going by the look on her face, her words contradicted her feelings, and Ben started to think that maybe, just maybe, if he prodded a little more, he’d be able to get the truth out of her. “Because I want to know why you kissed me, Rey!” he shouted suddenly, letting out a shuddering breath as he watched her lip quiver from the shock of his sudden outburst. Letting out a noise somewhere between a scoff and a bark of laughter, Ben leaned forward, and shook his head. “I want to know, why you grabbed my hand, let me pin you to a tree, and kissed me so hard I haven’t even looked at anyone else since.”

His name tumbled from that quivering lower lip of hers again, and he found himself instantly taken back to that moment against a Georgia oak, when they’d kissed for the first — and only — time. It was like he’d been physically transported; he could smell the earth on the late fall breeze, could hear the leaves rustling in the fire colored forest as they fell from branches, but yet he was sitting in his living room, watching Rey grow tense all over again. “I kissed you… because you were going away, and I didn’t know if I would see you again, and people kiss one another goodbye all the time.”

“Not like that,” he protested, feeling almost unable to contain his own feelings as he suddenly stood up from his chair, then he knelt down in front of her, watching the firelight flicker across her tanned skin as she stared down at him with a mixture of anxiety and wonder in her eyes. “Rey… people don’t kiss goodbye like that unless they’re —“ He stopped himself before he could finish that thought, his own gaze falling to the floor beside him. “Listen, just tell me honestly… is there a chance that perhaps it had some sort of deeper meaning? I… I need to know…”

She paused for a moment, then she, too stood up, and made her way over to the fire, resting both hands upon the mantle as she leaned on it for support. “Ben, I don’t know… it’s been so long… or… it had been so long since the last time I’d done such a thing or needed to do it. I just… you were there, and you were leaving, and emotions were heightened—“ Her breath caught in her throat, and she looked back at him then, shaking her head solemnly. “This is complicated.”

“How?”

Rey took in a shaky breath, then swallowed as she raised a hand, and clutched the fabric of her dress in her hand. “Ben, I’ve also thought about it from time to time since the moment it happened, too.” She shivered as she spoke, and something told him it wasn’t because of the cold. “I… I don’t know what to make of it. Cause with everyone else… they were always going to leave, and eventually, they’d leave forever. But not you… with you if I wanted, I could’ve asked you to stay.”

“And did you…?” he asked softly, his voice almost a whisper. “Did you want me to stay?”

“I don’t know… I’m… I’ve never cared for someone I didn’t think I could keep before. I’ve never held a connection with another human being for more than a few decades,” she replied, then she finally looked back at him. “And I… I don’t know if I’m ready to go beyond that. I don’t even think I’m fully aware of why I kissed you like that myself. I don’t… Ben, I…”

With a soft grunt, he pushed himself up off the ground, and made his way over to her, standing by her side so that they were now both watching the flames crackle and burn in his fireplace. “What would that be like?” he asked, knowing full well they’d treaded into dangerous waters. “To have someone forever? To never lose them? Not permanently, just… to know you’d see them again? What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think we’ll ever find out?” He looked at her then; astonished to find her haunted hazel eyes already staring back at him. “Do you think we’ll get the chance?”

They both knew what he meant by that question, and both of them shook with the weight of it, from how loaded it was. After a while, Rey shrugged, and shuffled her feet awkwardly on the ground. “I don’t know. I can’t say anything for certain with us, but… yes, I want to know what that’s like, too. One day, at least.” She then stiffened, and cleared her throat. “Ben?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry if I misled you with my kiss,” she told him. “I never meant to give you false impressions… I just… I genuinely meant it as a goodbye, and nothing else.”

“Absolutely nothing else?” He asked, searching those irises for one last sign of the truth, but they gave none, unless the kiss being platonic in nature really was its truth, and he had many doubts about that. Perhaps Rey was simply not ready to voice her true feelings; he knew he wasn’t, and that was why he hadn’t said anything to tell her that he was in love with her. All he’d said thus far — all  _ both  _ of them had said — was that the kiss had been a pleasant, mind bending experience. It was an excellent exchange between the two of them, but that didn’t necessarily mean both parties saw it as romantic.  _ Did it? _

Neither of them were ready to admit it yet, and thus, they were going to remain in that weird state of limbo they’d both been in since 1864 for a little while longer. 

“Nothing else,” she said, but he could tell from her voice that it wasn’t a promise. The truth wasn’t confirmed; it had been left ambiguous, and thus he could believe it was possible that one day, he might tell her he loved her, and she might tell him she loved him in return. It was stupid to hope, he knew, but he needed something to fuel his dreams in the coming months of war. “I’m not sure I’m ready for any of that right now.”

“How come?”

“My most recent loss? It’s still too fresh. I stayed with Rose most of her life. Well, the rest of it actually,” she told him, then she sniffled as a memory played itself out behind the glaze over her eyes. “She and I spent her final years in Virginia, helping to provide medical assistance in a hospital to the south of Richmond. It hasn’t even been six months since she passed.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” Rey sniffled again as she stepped back, and took her seat. He followed suit, and she waited until he was also sitting before she continued. “She lived a good life, very fulfilling. Her sister would’ve been proud.” A slight, dry chuckle left her. “Rose died of old age, and the last thing she told me was how glad she was to finally see Paige again after all that time.” That last bit had a tear falling slowly down her cheek, and Ben, unable to resist, stepped forward and wiped it off without saying anything. She froze while his thumb made contact with the damp skin of her face, then when he sat back down in the armchair beside her, she let out a breath he hadn’t noticed her holding, and kept going. “I buried her in a cemetery out there, and that’s when I headed down to South Carolina.”

“Oh?” he asked, then he cleared his throat. “And what about your friend? The woman you had with you in the restaurant?”

“That’s Maz,” Rey explained, pointing outside as if her friend were standing right out there in the rain. “She was the first friend I made here. She’s from a town a little ways to the northwest, but… her husband was heading off to join the war effort, so we made our way into town, sent him off proudly. We had to keep a low profile or I would’ve introduced the two of you, she’s a woman of color, and you know how deep the prejudice in the south still sinks.”

“It isn’t much better up north.”

“No, it isn’t,” Rey agreed, then she rubbed her arms as a shiver rushed through her again, clutching at the fabric of the blanket he’d given her. “But that was what we were doing at the restaurant. Catching dinner before heading home.”

“I suppose I put a wrench in those plans?” he asked, then he caught the first hint of a smile parting her pink lips, and she blushed as she looked away from him. 

“A little, yes.” She gave him a small chuckle as she continued in her story. “I sent Maz home with a little extra money, made sure she was taken care of, and immediately headed here. I had to know what happened to you — why we were separated for so long.”

Ben fell quiet for a moment, then he reached out into the space between them, offering her his hand. She looked at him hesitantly, then she placed her own in his, and laced their fingers together as she swallowed back her nerves, and they both leaned back into their chairs. 

It wasn’t fair that this kept happening to them, it really wasn’t. They deserved better than what they’d gotten, but Ben couldn’t help but feel like it was all for a purpose. Everything they’d been through was all building up to something. From the beginning he’d sensed a greater fate for them beyond the horizon, but it was only now that he could see it coming over the nearest ridge, and making its way toward them after such a long and perilous journey. He could see it approaching from somewhere close by, but it was still faint in outline and he couldn’t quite make it out. 

Whatever it was, though, it was close; alarmingly so. But still obstacles stood between them and it, and one of those was —

“I leave tomorrow at noon,” he said suddenly, looking down at the uniform he still wore. “I… I didn’t think I’d see you again before the war was over.”

“Neither did I,” Rey admitted, squeezing his hand a little more tightly as she spoke. “Ben, I can wait a little while longer for you. I know how important it is to you to fight for what’s right — end these wars as quickly as possible.”

He froze, taking a second to gather his thoughts. “Rey, are you sure? I’ll… I’ll put it on hold, I’ll wait another month or two if you want me to be here.”

“I’ll be fine, I’ve spent most of my time alone already, Ben. What’s another few months or… if we’re unfortunate enough… a few years?” She shrugged. “It isn’t as if we don’t have the time.”

“Rey…”

All she did in response was stand up, and tug on the hand she was holding. “Ben, we only have so much time, and I’m warm enough now, I think you’ll do nicely as a replacement for the fire.” He could tell she was nervous as she talked, her breath hitching between one sentence and the next, but she still managed to get the words out anyway. “Can we just…” There was a somewhat lengthy pause, then, “Can we hold each other like we used to? Like Venice? Like Portugal? Or… West Virginia?”

A smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, then he let her pull him up so that he was standing once more, and he nodded. “I miss those places…” With his free hand, he reached up, and gingerly caressed her cheek. “One day, when this is all over, and we actually get the chance to stay together, I want to go back to them.”

Her voice fell quiet. “I’d like that.”

“And maybe one day we’ll find that cabin in West Virginia… maybe we can reread all those Jane Austen novels and forget about all the things we’ve been through for a while.”

“Sounds like paradise.”

“It does, doesn’t it?” he asked, then he brushed her hair back behind her ear, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead. “We’ll go back… I promise.”

Rey leaned into his touch, then she wrapped her arms around his waist once more, allowing him to properly hold her as his own snaked around her shoulders. For a while they swayed like that, listening only to the crackling of the fire and the violence of the storm outside as they basked in each other’s presence. In the grand scheme of all the time they’d known one another; they’d really not spent that much time together. They’d gotten the most fleeting, precious moments, and taken most of them for granted. They hadn’t ever appreciated what they’d been given enough, and Ben intended for that to change. 

He also intended, once he returned home from the war, to never leave Rey’s side ever again if he could help it. They needed each other; it was clear that day more than ever before. Going on as they had wasn’t an option, and luckily, with evolving technology, losing one another was going to start getting more difficult.

A bolt of lightning struck outside after a few minutes, briefly illuminating the room in a white, fierce light that clashed with the soft one created by his fireplace. The sight of it made him think of the night it had all started, the night they’d both been rendered immortal and started their impossibly long journeys to get to this point. All it had taken was two, powerful bolts of electricity, and fate had decreed the two of them were destined to live forever. While he still resented the forces that existed for putting them both through such peril and despair, he found himself oddly grateful for a small part of that day; for it had allowed him the rare opportunity to know Rey — to meet the most wonderful human being he’d ever known in his millennium of life. 

For that much at least, he was grateful, even if it meant he had to live with the pain of all the losses he had suffered in between. Even if it meant he had to remember the family that had been the first to leave him in all of history. 

“Did you ever remember anything about your family?” he asked her suddenly, but neither of them pulled away from the embrace. Both seemed perfectly content in one another’s arms even as the uncomfortable subject reared its ugly head. “About your life before the lightning?”

“No,” she replied shaking her head into his chest. “I never did, and I never want to.” Immediately after finishing that sentence, she froze. “I meant… I’m sorry you had to, but I am grateful to have escaped such a fate.”

“Rey, I took no offense, don’t worry,” he promised her, then he pressed another kiss to the side of her head. “I was only curious. I just… I think about that day every time I see lightning now. I wonder… I wonder if anyone else has suffered the same fate. If there’s another out there who is wandering this earth confused as to how they cannot die.”

“I feel like we would’ve found them by now.” Rey sniffled as she pulled back, and rested her forehead on his collar bone. “I think… I think we’re alone, Ben.”

“Not as long as we have each other.” He pulled back then, but continued stroking her hair with one hand as he looked down into those sad, hazel eyes. “Do you remember the letter you left for me when we were in Portugal? Do you remember what you said?”

“I…”

“ _ When you find yourself in misery and loneliness, look up at the evening sky, with any luck, I’ll be staring at the same stars. Or maybe look at the moon, for all you know, I could be staring at it, too, and maybe then we won’t be quite so alone _ ,” he recited, having memorized the letter word for word over the centuries. He’d kept it safely tucked away in a corner of a box of his things that he’d amassed over the course of time — a small gathering of baubles and objects that served merely as proof of all the years he’d lived; a time capsule of sorts. “That’s what you told me.”

Rey’s breathing shuddered as he spoke, then she swallowed. “Is that what you’re suggesting we do now? Look at the moon to remember each other?”

“It’s what we’ve always done if we’re being honest with each other,” he admitted, then he reached behind himself, and took one of her hands in his, grasping it tightly as he spoke to her. “Rey, I just want you to know...regardless of whether I’m just a friend to you or something… something more… I’m always going to think of you whenever I see moonlight. And before we turn in for the evening… can you tell me if you think the same?”   


For a few seconds, she fell quiet, and he watched a tear form from the mist in her eyes, and streak down her face onto the heel of his palm, dampening his skin with its salty heat. After a while, though, she managed a nod, and smiled weakly. “I do. I always… I always think of you.”

“Then tomorrow night, when both the clouds and I are gone, that’s what we’ll do,” he replied quietly, his voice sinking down into a whisper. “And that’s how we’ll know we’re not alone.”

Her own voice grew quiet as she offered him her reply, “That sounds nice,” she breathed, then she gripped his hand a little more tightly, and stepped back. “But for now, why don’t we put out this fire, lie down, and pretend we’re still in that little West Virginia cabin?”

Ben managed a chuckle at that. “I did promise to hold you.”

“You did.”

“I just wish we had more time.”

“One day we will,” she said as he pulled away from her, and grabbed an aged metal pitcher from above the mantle, splashing it onto the flames until they were doused completely before setting it back down on its perch, and turning to the woman he loved. 

Once more, he offered her his hand. “Shall we?” he asked, feeling a smile rise to his face as she laced her fingers through his again, and allowed him to lead her into his bedroom. His heart raced as they both removed their shoes and outer layers, feeling for a moment as if they were undressing for another purpose other than to achieve comfort while they slept, but then a rolling clap of thunder shook the ground, and he felt a sense of peace wash over him. 

It wasn’t like that; he wasn’t about to make love to Rey, he told himself —  _ Not yet,  _ supplied a not at all helpful voice in his head — he was just doing what they’d always done. They’d always lain together. They’d always held each other in bed, both yearning for a sort of contact that they never got from anyone else. 

That was what he convinced himself of as he laid down on his bed in perfect sync with her, waiting until her back hit the mattress before he shifted over to her, and scooped her up into his arms whilst lying on his back. Rey hummed contentedly as she rested her head on his chest, and flung an arm around his waist as she pressed herself up along his side, the shared warmth of their bodies passing in a smooth, unending current between them that had him making similar sounds of peaceful joy. 

“I don’t know how many times I’ve told you this, but… goodnight, Rey,” he said, feeling his heart race again at the giggle she gave him in response. 

“I’ll never tire of hearing it,” she assured him, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt at his side. “Goodnight, Ben.”

They fell into a silence after that, and he let his eyes flutter shut as sleep took him in its clutches, bringing him into another morning in which he would wake up by her side, and bringing them both another step closer to whatever it was that had evaded them on the horizon for so many centuries. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to mention that I'm about to spend six weeks doing a summer course for school out in a rural part of the country, and I will try to write as much as I physically can, but it may be difficult due to a lack of signal and time. However, I'll try my absolute best to get this bad boy finished by the end of August if not July. Thanks so much to everyone who's stuck with me so far.


	19. Charleston, 1917 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry this took so long, I was very very busy! First, I crossed the country, and it was two thousand miles over three days. Pretty hectic. Then I fuckin had to go out into the field and wow that was an experience. But I managed to get this bad boy done so here goes!
> 
> **edit: this chapter accidentally posted twice, and I deleted the one everyone commented on, so if you’re getting an email about this now, that’s why 😂 sorry guys.

The next morning, Rey woke up just before dawn. Thunder and lightning were still clashing violently outside while the ocean churned in a vicious cycle she suspected had lasted throughout the night, but hadn’t noticed whilst sleeping soundly in Ben’s arms. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as she realized she was still wrapped up in them. In the night, they’d gotten tangled up in one another pretty thoroughly — just like they used to in Portugal and West Virginia — to the point where she couldn’t tell where one of them ended and the other began. 

She knew she had an arm wrapped around Ben’s waist; that he was facing her, and his own were clutching her tightly against his warm chest so that she could feel his heart beating as her forehead pressed against it. His chin rested over the crown of her head, his breath ghosting over her scalp with every exhale of the air from his lungs, and she found that soft little rhythm soothing. Their legs were the most tangled part of all, though. They were locked around one another, feet hooking around knee caps and calves, and one of Rey’s heels was latched around Ben’s lower thigh. 

A blush crept up her cheeks as she realized the apex of her thighs was brushing right up against the hard muscles of one of his, and she let out a shuddering breath as he shifted slightly in his sleep, that hard plane brushing just right against her clit. It took all of her strength not to moan loudly enough to wake him up over the storm, but somehow she managed as she continued holding him close while shifting away from the pleasant contact. 

The dream she’d had two centuries prior came bursting into the forefront of her mind then. She remembered how it had felt when she’d thought his hands were bringing her close to the first climax she’d had in ages, how his voice had sounded when he’d warned her he was close. Since then, she still hadn’t had any sort of contact of that nature with another human being, and by that point, she’d almost forgotten what sexual frustration felt like. 

After the day she’d spent with Ben, though, after reliving their kiss, she thought she might be experiencing it once more, and that idea terrified her. It had been a part of why she hadn’t told him the truth about how she felt earlier — well, that, and the fact that he’d be going off to war the next afternoon — she had been oddly scared of what would happen if they both gave in. It had been so long, and she wasn’t sure what it’d be like with someone she loved as much as she loved him. In reality, it would probably be wonderful, but Ben hadn’t quite given her any indication that he felt as mind bendingly in love with her as she was with him. 

And above all, she didn’t want to ruin the friendship they’d built if it turned out that Ben wasn’t ready for the same things she was. They had previously been at two very different points in their lives, and only come together during the battle of Gettysburg fifty four years earlier. At one point, Rey had started to wonder if the only reason they’d gotten to be so in sync was because of the stupid, bloody war, but by the end of it… she knew they were truly ready to be together as friends. Their paths had converged enough for that. But anything beyond that? Uncharted and terrifying land that she didn’t know how it walk into alone. 

_ But she wouldn’t be alone.  _

Ben stirred beside her in his sleep, then, humming softly as his arms flexed around her body, and his thigh brushed against her apex again. This time, she failed to stifle the moan, and she released it into his chest, wincing when she felt his whole body tense from coming into consciousness. Both of their hearts beat faster as they became fully aware of what had just happened, and Rey felt fear rising within her that he’d ask her to leave because of that sound — that he’d become nervous and not want her there anymore because he wasn’t on the same level that she was and that had been what they’d always done, run away when it got hard — but then he relaxed, and she felt a kiss get pressed to her forehead. 

“Rey, are you alright?” he asked softly, his voice only just above a whisper so that she could hear him over that of the thunderstorm raging hell on them outside. 

She gave him a nod that was perhaps a bit too fast for someone who wasn’t telling a lie. “I’m… I’m fine…” she replied, hopeful that he’d leave the matter alone; or better yet, that he hadn’t heard her at all. 

“I thought I heard something.” His fingers began to absentmindedly stroke her hair then, and she hummed contentedly as she relaxed into that touch. “Maybe that’s what I heard.”

They both giggled at this, then Rey grasped the fabric of his shirt with the hand that wasn’t slung over his waist. “Yes, yes it was,” she lied with a yawn. 

A tiny groan escaped Ben, then she could sense the frown on his face in the way he leaned his head up and over her, as if he were trying to see out the window of his bedroom. “What time is it?”

“Not quite morning yet. We still have a few more hours,” she assured him, rubbing tiny circles into the fabric of the shirt covering his chest as she spoke. “But it is now December sixteenth.”

Another hum left him, then he tightened his grip around her waist ever so slightly. “Nine days until Christmas.”

“I never pegged you for the religious sort.”

At this, he managed a laugh for her. “No, I’m not.” His fingers resumed stroking her hair, his arm muscles flexing in a soothing manner at her back as he spoke. “I usually don’t notice the holiday. It comes and goes, and I don’t give it much thought.”

“So what’s changed this time, then?”

“You,” he said, then she felt him loosen the grip he had on her hair as he pulled back just enough to look her in the eyes. When she finally saw his, they were hooded with sleep, and darker than she’d ever seen due to the shadows cast about the room. A quick flash of lightning ignited the fires of the gold within them, but put them out just as quickly. Still it sent a shiver running down her spine, and she tried to conceal it from him, but he had grown used to her tiny little movements by then. They’d known one another for too long to be able to hide  _ anything.  _ “Are you cold?”

She shook her head. “No, just… I wasn’t expecting that,” she told him with a nervous chuckle. 

“I’m… I’m sorry if that’s too forward, but… I don’t know…” He paused, then resumed stroking her hair like it was just second nature to him. “I didn’t think I’d see you again, but now I have, and given the timing… it sort of feels like a sign. I know it’s not for another few days…”

“Nine days, to be precise.”

“But, Rey, I feel like I’ve been wishing for so long to see you again, and now I am… right before I ship off to war.” That last sentence was finished with a groan, but then he took in a deep breath. “I just… I never have cared much for this day, but… if I did, I’d consider you to be the best gift I ever could’ve gotten.”

Her breath hitched in her chest. “Ben…”

“Listen, there’s something I need to tell you before I ship off, and I won’t say it until I’m leaving, but… I think we both know what I have to say, and why it has to wait.” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the dim light. “But I want to warn you that I’m going to say it…”

Rey froze then, realizing just how much he’d been holding back yesterday. Maybe he wasn’t in love with her, but he felt something; or at least the beginning of it, and suddenly she understood why he’d kissed her so passionately fifty three years earlier. “I know what you’re saying, what you’re going to say—“

“Then let me say it when the time comes,” he replied, loosening his grip on her hair again. “Please.”

They fell quiet for a moment after that, then Rey managed to give him a nod, her mind still reeling with the possibilities of what Ben might tell her later. “Okay… what do we… what do we do in the meantime?”

“I think I owe you breakfast,” he replied with a small chuckle. “Remember Venice? You cooked while I—“

A blush crept up her cheeks, making her grateful for the cover of darkness as she reached up to press a finger to his lips before she could envision him in her bed four centuries earlier. They’d playfully wrestled that morning in the light of the rising sun — one of the only other things that seemed to live as long as they did — and when she’d felt his erection pressing against her inner thigh, she’d been shocked and slightly aroused. With a smile on her face, she’d left him alone to deal with it while she’d made breakfast, but the entire time she’d been in her kitchen she’d been all too aware of what Ben was doing in the upstairs bedroom. 

She wondered if in that moment, while he cooked, that he thought she might take the same opportunity he had centuries prior. “I remember,” she whispered, then she licked her lips, and laughed nervously. “I… I remember that morning. It was a good morning.”

“I know it’s a bit awkward, sorry,” he replied, and through the slight tremor in his voice she could sense his embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have brought it up… I just meant…” A groan escaped him. “God, why is it with you I can never just say what I mean?”

“It’s okay, Ben.”

He sighed as he rested his chin on the crown of her head again. “Rey, I just meant I’m planning on making us both food, if that’s alright with you.”

Rey took a moment to gather her thoughts, then she smiled at him as he started to pull away, her gaze catching briefly on his lips. It was then that all traces of the words she intended to say to him escaped her, and she was once more taken back to the field outside of Atlanta in 1864. If she closed her eyes, she could feel the tree bark digging into her back through the fabric of her dress, and his tongue on her lips as it pressed them gently apart—  _ focus.  _ “That sounds perfect,” she replied, electing to instead reach up to stroke the skin of his cheek gently with her thumb; an intimate gesture, but one he appreciated going by the look of contentment on his face. “Want some help?”

“No, I can do this on my own.”

“Might be more fun with a partner,” she told him, then she took one of his hands in hers, and held it close between their chests, the heat of their bodies keeping their fingers warm as she persuaded him to the best of her ability. “And like you said… it’s Christmas.”

“It’s December sixteenth.”

“Ben, let’s do this together… let’s celebrate the holiday in our own way… let’s act like mortals for once— we can pretend for a few minutes like you’re not going off to war and you won’t get hurt and…” She tightened her grip on his hand, and let out a shaky breath. “And we’ve only got this morning. As much as we think we’ve got all the time in the world… sometimes we don’t…” Her eyes fell down again, though this time, she was staring at their joined hands, watching his thumb circle around hers soothingly as she spoke. “And this is one of those times. With every war the weapons get deadlier; the stakes get higher, and with this one that has never been more true. So please, make breakfast with me, celebrate a stupid holiday with me, and let me enjoy the company of my oldest, dearest friend in case the world decides it has finally invented a weapon powerful enough to kill you.”

He didn’t answer her at first; he only wrapped his one arm more tightly around her, and she felt his body shake with what must’ve been sobs as he held her close, and continued his attempts to soothe her with the circles he rubbed into her skin. For a moment, all she could hear was the sound of their breathing and the thunderstorm outside, the two mixing together in a chorus that sang louder than any words they could’ve spoken. There was so much said in that silence that they could never quite encompass with physical speech, and Rey felt a shudder pass through her entire body as Ben pulled back, then he nodded. “We’ll do that.” He pressed an almost dainty kiss to her forehead. “We’ll do all of it. But, Rey?”

“Hmm?”

“Nothing I face out there is going to kill me, all right? I promise you. Nothing will hurt me,” he told her, then she could see his eyes as they looked down at her, and in their severity she found herself believing him. “I will come back here one day, and I will find you again, and we’ll go back to what we had in West Virginia. But in the meantime… Breakfast?”

*

As it turned out, the two of them cooking breakfast together managed to work rather well. In spite of Ben nearly burning the ham and Rey nearly dropping the eggs from the stove, they managed to get themselves together enough to pull off a successful meal. At least, they did once they stopped laughing for long enough to actually cook. 

Half an hour after they left the bed, they were sitting at his kitchen table, both trying visibly not to giggle as they poured sugar into their respective coffees, exchanging glances that were — if Rey was not mistaken — definitely edging on flirtatious. Not that she particularly minded; she and Ben had flirted before, but in the aftermath of their conversations since they’d reunited, the flirting took on a different tone. It was like it suddenly meant something more, like it suddenly wasn’t just a joke. 

It was as if it was finally leading somewhere after centuries of teasing. 

“You know, humanity has invented many great things since we were born,” Ben told her suddenly, interrupting her thoughts as he marveled at his own cup of coffee. “But… I don’t think any of those are quite as great as this.”

“Coffee?”

“Coffee, Rey. It’s brilliant. Tastes excellent depending on the roast and how much sugar you put in it, and… makes it easier to deal with mortals,” he said, adding that last chunk with a sarcastic — but charming — wink. “Just saying. It’s made the last few centuries that much better for me.”

Rey hummed her assent, then took a sip of her own drink as a realization hit her. “You know, it’s been around in our culture for centuries now, but I don’t think you and I have shared a cup together yet. Even when we were living together we always drank tea.”

“That’s because the people who owned the cabin we stole only possessed an excess stock of it in their food storage,” he pointed out, then he leaned back in his chair as he set down the cup. “So if this is the best invention created by men with decades for lifespans… what is the worst?”

At first, Rey was tempted to make some kind of joke at the expense of everyone around them that was perfectly capable of dying a normal, mortal death, but the true answer came to her far more quickly and much more brutally. “The weapons that are designed to kill increasing amounts of people in ways that only get crueler.”

“That… that’s probably it.” A grim look crossed his face. “Or allowing a system that traded human lives.”

“Ooh, that one’s worse.”

“It’s up there, yeah,” Ben replied, running a hand through his hair before he full body shuddered. “God, we’ve seen so much.”

“Too much, some might say.”

“Most if not all would agree with you.” He took a bite of his eggs, moaning softly at the taste, and causing Rey’s cheeks to flush anew as she processed the sound and committed it to memory. “But we’ve seen it nonetheless.”

“We have.”

“What’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen?” he asked suddenly, nearly causing her to choke on her meat. “Are you all right?”

Rey nodded fervently before he could even think to get up to check on her. She didn’t need to be checked anyway — she was fucking immortal. Even if she was choking, it wasn’t exactly going to be a legitimate problem. “I’m fine,” she replied, then she tapped her chin as if thinking very seriously on an answer to his question. “Hmm… my favorite thing.”

“Not your favorite,” he interrupted, then he gestured vaguely but grandly at the sky. “The greatest.”

This time, she was the one to lean back, and relax in her seat as she thought through the immense amount of years she’d lived through so far. There had been a great many terrible things, but also so many wonderful ones. Figuring out which of those trumped them all was going to be a trying task, but she was going to attempt it. “I… I don’t know… there’s just so much…” She couldn’t think of anything suddenly, it was as if all of the memories she’d ever experienced had conveniently left her mind, and rendered her completely blank. “I honestly can’t say… maybe… inventing a form of undergarment that doesn’t restrict my ability to breathe.”

They both burst into laughter, and Ben raised his coffee cup, waiting patiently for her to clink hers against it before they took another sip in unison, smiles still hiding behind their gazes as they changed the subject. “So how long do you think this one will last?”

Rey quirked an eyebrow. “Are you talking about the war?”

“Yeah,” Ben replied, then he took another sip of his coffee. “It’s already been three years for most of the world. We’re just here because the Germans sank the wrong boat.”

Rey shook her head. “I think it’s a bit deeper than that. You don’t send a country into war and countless men to their deaths over one shipwreck, that was just the final nail in the coffin.”

He blinked, but conceded his point as he gave her a weak hearted smile. “Quite right,” he said, then he cleared his throat. “But how long do you think we’ll be a part of it? Do you think it’ll be another four years like the war against the south, or…?”

“I think either way it’ll be over in the blink of an eye for us,” she told him, stabbing her last bite of eggs into her fork. “But, Ben?”

“Hmm?”

“Come home quickly either way… I don’t want to wait another fifty years before I see you again.” 

Upon hearing that, Ben reached across the table for her hand and nodded, though he said nothing as his eyes locked firmly onto hers. The exchange of glances was serious, but soft in its tone. They’d long since mastered the art of holding a conversation without saying anything, and so for a few minutes they let all the words they were feeling drift into one another in the silence 

In spite of their ease of communication with one another, though, Rey wondered if he could understand her meaning word for word — if he was just that skilled at understanding people. If he understood her when she told him by squeezing his hand, and running her thumb over the back of his,  _ I love you, _ and didn’t mean it in the platonic way she’d meant it fifty four years earlier in Gettysburg. Going by the look on his face, he’d certainly interpreted  _ something  _ from that stare. 

“We have a little more time before I’m due at the docks,” Ben said after a while, speaking only when looks couldn’t convey the words he was trying to say. “What do you want to do until then?” Before she could speak, he pointed a finger at her, and grinned. “And don’t say lounge in bed all day either.”

Rey let her head fall back as she groaned mockingly. “Oh, but that’s my favorite pastime, Ben!”

“There’s plenty of things to do here, I promise.” He crossed his arms over his chest, then shrugged. “If we’re going to pretend to have a normal Christmas, perhaps we ought to go into town, maybe I can get you something along the way… something to hold onto until I’m back.”

Another smile parted her lips, then she gave him a slight nod. “And I can do the same for you, so you have something to hold onto and… and think of better times when things get rough.” She then took in an uneasy breath, and glanced down at the floor. “So… yes, let’s go into town, let’s buy one another stupid trinkets, and pretend that this is Christmas.”

“I like that plan,” Ben replied, then he reached over, and took her hand. “But we’ll have to seem less familiar with one another in public if we don’t want to attract wandering eyes.”

Rey stiffened, remembering the rules society had likened itself to for the many centuries since she’d been born. Another sigh escaped her lips, then she looked back up at him. “Of course, but don’t act too much like a stranger, hmm?”

“Never,” he replied, then he stood up from the table, and offered her his hand. “Shall we?”

Her smile reached her eyes as she reached out, and took it, allowing him to help her to stand before they both headed upstairs to grab their coats, and commence the first of many christmases they’d have together. The rule of not acting too familiar, though, would soon become forgotten. 

*

An hour later they were strolling arm in arm down the street with an umbrella shared between them. In spite of the rain having calmed to a relatively light drizzle, Ben had insisted on keeping the pair of them dry at all costs, though she suspected that had more to do with him wanting to keep  _ her  _ dry rather than them both. 

Still, she didn’t call him out on it. She rather liked how close they were as they walked out toward the shops — of which there were not many — walking past a store selling toys for children and another selling record players — and opted for the jewelry store at the end. Rey wasn’t sure just what had drawn them toward it, but she’d felt compelled by the quaint little shop on the corner of Ben’s street, and going by the look on his face; he’d felt the same. 

The umbrella went away the moment they walked in, and Ben hung it up on the little wooden rack the merchant running it had set up for his customers as they made their way inside. Almost immediately, Rey was taken by the charm the shop had. Jewels of various shapes, sizes, and colors sat on cushions lining a mahogany table on one side, and watches of equally variant types lined another. It was simple and rather small in size, but still oddly enchanting, or perhaps that was the sense of excitement that came with the vague premonition that something good was about to happen. 

The merchant, however, was nowhere to be seen, leading Rey’s mind to wander into paths of slight suspicion. 

“Is this somewhere you frequent often?” she asked him, looking around the shop for any sign of the merchant, but finding none. 

Ben shook his head, but she caught hints of a blush coloring his cheeks. “No, the man who owns it is just a good friend of mine,” he told her, making his way over to a display of necklaces.  _ So that was why he’d chosen that shop.  _ “I’ve mostly kept to myself, but… on occasion, Kes goes to the bar at the same time I do. He’s been going a bit less, though, since he got married, so I’ve got to come see  _ him _ now.”

“Ah, it's always a pain when our friends outgrow us.”

“Quite right,” Ben said, and he smiled shyly as his fingers wandered over a silver locket hanging on a chain made of the same material. “What are your thoughts on lockets?”

Rey looked at it for a moment, then she too felt a grin blossom on her face. “Why? Are you considering giving me one for Christmas?”

“I… it’s the sort that you could put a picture in… and um… last summer Kes’s wife, Shara took some of us. I… I could put it in here and give you that. This way we’d… have something to remember one another by.”

It sounded like a beautiful idea. In all the time they’d known one another, Rey had never had anything but the mental image of him. She’d had nothing but the distorted perspective her brain provided, and it was incomparable to the original model. Ben was a truly unique man in his appearance, and there was not quite any committing him properly to memory, but… if she had a picture, perhaps she would finally be unable to forget a thing. 

But she had nothing to give him in return. 

“That sounds wonderful, Ben, but… I can’t do the same for you,” she replied, then her eyes drifted down to the floor. “I’ve never had my picture taken. I’ve never even been drawn.”

For a moment, he just stared at her in confusion, and after a while she looked back up to see his eyes had grown soft again. “Rey, I don’t expect anything from you; I never have and never will.” He reached for her hand, causing her heart to start beating faster again as she felt his warm hand wrap around hers, and grasp it firmly but gently. “But one day we ought to change that. We need to get your picture taken. The world should know…” He paused, as if debating what he was going to say next, then in a burst of confidence, he finished it. “...how beautiful you are.”

“Beautiful, huh?” Her breath caught in her throat as she turned away, finding herself unable to look at him after he said that. She hid the abruptness of her action under the guise of turning to find  _ him  _ a gift, and ran her fingers over a display of gold and brass colored watches. 

She could practically  _ see _ him blanch at the realization of what he’d said and the potential romantic implications it had. While both of them were now very much aware that something had developed between them over the course of the centuries they’d known each other, Rey was certain neither was ready to cross that line just yet. It was coming soon, but it wasn’t quite there yet. They still had a few more miles to walk before they could reach their destination. 

“I-I just mean… objectively speaking, you are. Very… um… very b—“

It was then that a new voice joined the conversation, and both he and Rey jumped a good few feet into the air from shock. “Solo, what the hell have you gotten yourself this time?”

Both of them turned in unison to see a dark-haired, well dressed — if the expensive looking business suit was anything to go by — man staring at them with mischief rife in his gaze while he leaned against a door she hadn’t noticed was open. A smirk forced the corners of his mouth to twitch upward, then he pushed himself away from the door, and held out his hand to Rey. “Excuse my manners, miss. I’m Kes,” he told her, and she looked at it for a moment with hesitation, but then she took it, and shook the man’s hand slowly. 

“I’m Rey,” she replied, then he gave her a smile that seemed like it could ignite the sun, and moved on to greet Ben. 

“You didn’t tell me you’d found a lady, Ben,” he said teasingly. 

All that did was make Ben’s stuttering even worse than it was before as he tried in vain to explain that Rey was not his lady. “N-no! No she’s not my— she’s not mine, Kes, she’s just a friend.”

“A friend, eh?” Kes asked, then Rey watched as Ben’s soft eyes glared at his friend. Understanding filled the other man then, and he dropped the subject, his voice taking on a serious, business-like tone. “So what can I do for you?”

“We’re supplying each other’s Christmas gifts, Kes,” Ben explained, then he picked up the locket he’d selected for her, and held it up in front of him. “I need this and those pictures Shara took of us last summer.”

Hearing that, Kes’s face fell, and she watched as he made his way over to Ben, clapping a palm on his arm. “It’s today, isn’t it?”

Ben gave him a nod. “Yes, it’s today, I told you last week.”

“I was hoping you would change your mind,” Kes replied, but he nodded, and stepped back. “I’ll go get the photograph. You…” He turned and looked at Rey. “You find something for him. Anything you like.”

Sorrow filled her as she nodded, then prepared to turn to Ben, ready to say something, but then Kes spoke up one last time before he left the room for good. “Oh, and… look up.” He pointed at the ceiling, and as he made his exit, their eyes followed that direction until they were staring up at the lights decorating the shop, but mostly just at the tell tale leaves that designated there was mistletoe hanging above their heads. 

As Kes’s footsteps retreated, Ben and Rey slowly faced one another, and in the silence that fell over them, she swore she could hear both of their beating hearts racing in their chests as Ben set the locket back down on the display, then he reached up, and rested a hand on her cheek. “Rey,” he breathed, saying her name so softly it was barely even a whisper. The sound of it sent shivers running up her spine, and she closed her eyes as she gasped from the contact, then she watched as his eyes became hooded, and he sighed. “I know we both aren’t ready for something serious yet, but… we’re under mistletoe, it’s tradition… and even if it weren’t… I’d still want to kiss you right now.”

“I… I want to kiss you, too,” she replied, her voice just as quiet as his. “But, Ben, if I let you kiss me right now… I… I just…”

“Can I?” He asked, interrupting her. “Can I just know what it feels like one more time before I go?”

God, he was so close now. When had he gotten so close? She had barely even noticed until he was thoroughly in her space, until his forehead was leaning down to touch hers, and she could feel his breath ghosting over her lips. “Ben, we shouldn’t…”

“But do you want to?”

Taking in another shaky breath, she rested a hand on his arm. “We’re in public.”

“I don’t care if you don’t.”

“I don’t.”

“Then kiss me, kiss me one more time, maybe for the last time. Just…” His other hand came up to caress her elbow. “I need… I need…” 

Rey didn’t let him finish his sentence. Instead she surged forward again on the tips of her toes, initiating their second kiss a bit more sweetly than the way she’d started the first. They were already so close that all she had to do was lean another inch forward, and her lips were pressed against his as her fingers fisted themselves into his hair, and pulled him tightly against her. 

Just like the last time, his initial reaction was pure and utter shock, but then he melted into it, and returned it with fervor. It never grew as passionate as their first one had — never gained that same desperation — but it had an underlying current of a promise that sent fire running through her veins. It was the most serene, peaceful thing she’d ever experienced. It felt like she was right where she belonged — in his arms, surrounded by his warmth as he kissed the life back into her. 

At some point his hand shifted, his thumb brushing away a tear as it fell onto her cheek, then he deepened the kiss as his other hand came around her back, bending her into him so that they were thoroughly pressed against one another. It occurred to her as she tilted her head back that the kiss was far too intimate for a public setting; anyone walking in would find themselves immediately scandalized, but the rest of the world soon became forgotten as Ben’s tongue parted her lips. 

Everything else became nothing but a memory as they became even more tangled in each other than they already were, moving perfectly in unison as they clutched one another too tightly in some desperate attempt to stay rooted exactly where they were for the rest of their immortal lifespans. Any thought about anything that wasn’t that kiss left her brain. The universe was comprised entirely of the nonexistent space between their bodies and them. 

As they finally parted, all Rey could think was how much she couldn’t wait for that part of the future — the part where she and Ben were both ready to face the feelings that had blossomed between them and started… She wasn’t sure what they were going to start, but going by the two earth shattering kisses they’d shared, she had a feeling it was something beautiful. 

Both of them were panting hard as they slowly untangled themselves, but didn’t part completely. She only stepped back far enough so that she could no longer feel the hard planes of his chest pressing against her. If she stayed there even a second longer, she would’ve had to pull him back in and start their next chapter prematurely, so she moved away, but only enough so that she could see him properly. The sight of his red, kiss swollen lips was already enough to send her entire soul reeling, and she forced herself to look up into his darkened irises, catching hints of that gold she loved so much about his eyes at the edges of the little brown circle surrounding the black.

All of it was too much, forcing his name from her lips just before he pressed one last, brief but searing kiss to her lips, and gave her a nod. “Merry Christmas, Rey,” he whispered. 

“Merry Christmas, Ben,” was her quiet reply, then she pulled back again, and forced herself to look away, to look at the watch display behind him. Sniffling quietly, she looked around at the metal jewelry, settling on an aged looking piece that ticked away the seconds they had left together. Still feeling her lips tingling, she reached over, and picked it up, nodding slowly as she held it up to Ben. “I think this one will do for now… until I can get you something better.”

“It’s perfect,” he replied, then he reached behind himself, and grabbed hold of the locket he’d picked out for her. “I know you never do, but… don’t forget me.”

“You’re impossible to forget, Ben,” she assured him, then she reached up, and tapped the tip of his nose with her pointer finger. “Must be that face of yours.”

He scoffed, but upon hearing her reading laughter, she watched him smile. “How did we ever come to like each other, with you treating me like this?” 

“Centuries of practice,” she told him, then she rested a hand on his arm. “But I’m glad we did. You’re… you’re unexpectedly wonderful… and sweet, and it gets harder every time you leave…”

“One day, we won’t ever have to part again, I promise,” he whispered. “And that day is coming soon, Rey. It’s coming sooner than either of us can ever know.”

She hummed her assent, then gave him a sad smile. “Not soon enough.” 

They both laughed nervously, newborn tears misting their eyes as they looked at one another. Both were clearly eager to say something, but neither knew how to open the conversation. Luckily, not even a minute later, they heard the sound of Kes’s footsteps, signaling his return. “I’ve got the picture,” he announced as he walked back into the room, staring at it rather than them as he held it in his hands. “Hope it fits in the locket.”

Rey stepped over to him then, peering over his hands at the picture, which showed Ben from the chest up wearing a suit that had her train of thought racing somewhere unholy as she looked at it. His hair was parted the same way it had been since the day they’d met, and no amount of fading by the sepia tone of the image could mask his waves, nor the hint of light in the brown of his irises. By some miracle it managed to capture the essence of him, and she felt as if those eyes were actually seeing into her soul like they always seemed to in real life. 

It was the first photo she’d seen of him, and she planned to keep it close with her at all times. If it ever left her side, she wasn’t sure what she’d do after that. 

Beside her, she heard Ben’s shuffling footsteps, and she turned her head to see him moving past her with the locket in his hand to take the image from Kes. She watched wordlessly as his large fingers gripped the tiny image in one hand, and the other flipped open the necklace. For the few seconds he slipped it inside, she held her breath, fearing the little print wouldn’t fit inside of the even smaller piece of jewelry, but somehow it did. Now his eyes stared at her from behind the little piece of glass shielding it from the world, and continued to do so until Ben shut the locket, and handed it over to her. “How much for these?” 

“Consider it my own present,” Kes answered him, then he looked between Ben and Rey. “To you both.” He stepped forward, and held out his hand to her friend. “And please come home in one piece.”

Ben said nothing as he shook Kes’s hand, then he pulled him into a hug. The other man initially jolted in surprise, but then he returned it, patting his friend’s back gently before they finally parted, and stepped away. “Thank you, Kes.”

“It’s my pleasure.”

“I’ll see you on the other side,” he said, and Rey fought back the memory of the last time she’d heard him say that just before they’d parted during the Civil War. A stuttered gasp still escaped her, and she knew Ben heard it from the way his eyes flickered briefly over to hers. 

“See you on the other side,” was Kes’s response, then the two of them made their way out of the shop, stopping only to grab hold of their umbrella on the way out. 

Once they were outside again, they paused on the sidewalk in front of the shop, and he handed her the umbrella. Confusion filling her, Rey looked up at Ben to see sorrow in his eyes as he held up the locket in both hands, gesturing to her neck. “Do you mind if I…?”

“Do it,” she said, then she turned around, holding the umbrella high above their heads so that he could get the necklace around her neck without getting himself sopping wet. After all, that uniform needed to stay clean until he saw battle, didn’t it? 

All thoughts disappeared from her head again as his hands came into her field of vision, and his fingertips scraped the skin of her neck while the cool metal of the necklace rested over her collarbone and shoulders. Shivers ran throughout her entire body as she felt him clasp it tightly at the top of her spine, and she sighed his name as she nearly dropped the watch she’d picked out for him. Somehow, though, she managed to keep it in her hand, and once Ben finished putting on her gift, she turned to face him with a shy smile on her face. 

“Your turn,” she told him, holding up the watch with her free hand, and gesturing for him to take the umbrella with the other. 

A laugh escaped him as he moved forward, and took it from her with his right hand, then offered her his left wrist. “Go for it,” he replied, then he fell quiet as she took the watch in her fingers, and wrapped its metal band around his wrist, searching for signs that he was as affected by the feeling of her skin on his as she’d been by the same thing a moment earlier. That sign came as she did the clasp of his watch, and he finally managed a shaky breath, causing her heart and ego to soar in perfect harmony. 

“There,” she said as she finished her work, patting his wrist with her fingers. “It’s a perfect fit.”

As her hand began its retreat, Ben’s suddenly turned over, and captured it in his before pulling her close one last time. “Thank you.” His voice was quiet to the point she almost didn’t hear it, and she didn’t quite understand why until she looked down at the time displayed on the watch. He was due at the docks around noon, and it was already nearing eleven. 

_ Damn it _ . When would they ever have time? For two people who could never die, they didn’t seem to ever have enough of it. She would’ve thought once upon a time that it would be the opposite. 

The moment she saw the time again, Rey reached up to press a hand to his cheek, and sighed again. “I’m heading north after this. Maz and her husband were planning to move to New York when the war’s done, and I’m going with them.” She cleared her throat, and cupped his jaw with her other hand. “Ben, meet me there. New York City, as soon as you can.”

“I will,” he promised her, resting a hand gently over one of hers as the other gripped their umbrella tightly. “As soon as I possibly can, I’ll be there.”

Rey nodded, then she leaned in, and kissed his cheek, pressing her lips to her skin in a brief, but lingering touch that had them both shivering against the cold. “Then let’s get you to the docks, you have a boat to catch.”

“I wish I didn’t.”

“You could still stay.”

“Rey, you know I can’t. Tell me honestly, if it weren’t harder now for you to pretend to be a man, wouldn’t you be going out there, too?” 

He was right, and she knew he was right. She’d considered joining the fight herself the moment it had broken out, but then she’d met Maz, and then her friend’s husband went off to war, and she couldn’t find it in her heart to leave. That on top of tightened security with letting women into the military sealed the deal she’d made with herself not to go into battle. “I’m tired of waiting for this, Ben. I just… I want you to stay.”

He gripped her hand a little more tightly, and closed his eyes as he leaned into her touch. “One day we will. And if it doesn’t work, then we’ll keep trying until it does.” A kiss was pressed to her palm then, making her realize suddenly just how far they’d veered from platonic territory. Friends didn’t kiss one another’s palms. They could kiss cheeks, could hug, could even hold hands, but there was an added layer of intimacy to every touch they had, and realizing that it transcended the immense amount of time they’d known one another frightened her. “Walk me to the docks?”

“Of course,” she replied, then she slid her hands down from his face, and took his arm instead before allowing him to lead her down the Charleston street back toward his apartment, and to their final moments in 1917. 

Christmas had come for her and Ben, and though she’d been given one of the greatest gifts she could’ve possibly imagined, she had never felt a more intense feeling of sorrow. 


	20. New York City, 1921 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM SO SORRY FOR HOW LONG THIS TOOK! I have been away completing a field camp program with my university's geology department in fuck ass, USA, and well, this involved A) A ten day camping trip with limited wifi and B) General bull shit with limited time, and then C) I had to work on my RFFA fic (which I'm still working on) and I've just had NO TIME for this one. I promise it isn't forgotten, now that I'm not camping anymore and the RFFA fic is nearly complete, I should be able to devote most of my time to this bad boy. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your patience, and please forgive the half-assed editing job.

Four years later, Ben stepped off the dock in a New York City harbor with a determined look on his face and all of his things piled into a suitcase made from European leather. Snow fell all around him, reminding the world’s oldest man that New Year’s Eve was nigh, and winter was nearing its peak chill. The air was freezing but humid as he made his way into Manhattan, looking around himself at the impressive lights and sheer volume of people passing by. 

New York was, so far, a bit overwhelming, but it was where Rey had told him she’d be, therefore that was where he had to go once he finished his business in Europe. Half of that time had been spent in war, with violence and bloodshed haunting him at every turn, and the other half had been spent in England, making one last attempt to understand his past before he finally gave up, and made his return to the woman he loved. 

Of course, the fact that he loved her was just another reason why Ben was avoiding Rey. In spite of knowing she cared for him romantically to some degree, fear was still running rampant in his veins. If they attempted something and it failed, they’d have to live with it for centuries. It was a conversation he’d had with himself a dozen times. If things went south; they’d have ruined their friendship, and he couldn’t stand to lose her. 

So Ben promised himself he wouldn’t press the issue until she did, and he had a feeling that with her as scared of failure as him, they would still be able to successfully be friends for a long time coming. 

_ As long as he stopped thinking about that kiss.  _

Well, it was two kisses now. They’d shared two kisses in all of the near ten centuries they’d known each other, and both of them were memories he cherished with every fiber of his being. Rey’s lips on his were something he wanted to feel every second, but… he always remembered that he risked losing her if he pushed harder for that side of their relationship, and as he well knew, that couldn’t happen. 

What  _ could  _ happen though was their long overdue reunion. Sure, they’d only been apart for four years compared to the centuries they’d been parted previously, but the war had ended at the tail end of 1918, three years before he finally worked up his courage and headed to New York. It was too long considering how much time they could’ve had together, and all because he was a coward. 

He only hoped that Rey would be able to forgive him for his mistake. 

Taking in a deep breath, Ben made his way through town, checking into the first hotel he could find that didn’t look like it was about to fall apart, and probably cost more money than some of the houses he’d owned historically per night. If he found Rey — though neither of them had ever cared about riches — he wanted to impress her. 

Once he was settled in, he pulled open the blinds of his fifth story window, and stared out at the city, his heart racing fast with the knowledge that somewhere in the lights and vibrant, white snow, he would find Rey. But where did he begin his search? All she’d told him was that she was moving there with her friend Maz and her husband after the war, but she’d said nothing about her friend’s last name or how to find her. 

He was looking for a needle in a haystack, and he didn’t know where to start. 

_ Christ,  _ he needed a drink. Even if he had a fairly high tolerance, Ben needed a fucking drink. Finding one those days was difficult, though, and he knew that if he really wanted to clear his head — or really cloud it, but at the bare minimum, he would relax his mind — he would have to look. 

Just over two hours after his arrival in the city, he made his way outside, taking a shiny looking elevator down to the lobby of his hotel before walking out onto the streets just as the sun descended below the horizon. Though darkness hadn’t completely won over the sky, nightlife erupted almost immediately. 

Well dressed women in draped dresses that exposed their shoulder and legs walked the streets on the arms of gentlemen who wore equally fancy suits not unlike Ben’s own. Each group he passed dressed similarly, and yet there were striking little differences between each of them that had him pausing to wonder if somewhere in the crowd he’d find the one person he was looking for. 

Perhaps she was on the streets like them, or maybe safe and sound in bed with one of the books they’d read in West Virginia, or better yet, she was heading into a secretive and yet loud speakeasy just like he was. But if she was underneath the city, where had she taken her nefarious deeds? 

Frowning as he turned onto the next street, Ben tuned his ears into the local conversations and the low notes of recent jazz tunes humming upwards from beneath the city. It was as if he’d found his own personal siren song. Within seconds of catching wind of a passerby saying the name of the nearest diner and what must’ve been a wicked giggle to a friend, he followed that music another block to the south. 

Snow fell gently around him, creating an odd sort of atmosphere with the slow, subtle sounds of music drifting in from below as he walked into the diner, following a couple that was giggling mischievously into the well lit, legal face that he knew had to be a front for something newly illegal. Keeping his head down, he brushed snowflakes from his shoulders and with silent nods and a minimal usage of words to a bouncer that was a full foot shorter than he was, Ben descended into America’s new underground. 

Like most speakeasies he’d heard of, it was poorly lit. At the front of the room, a small band was playing, a dark skinned singer crooning something hinging on sultry while swaying softly in a pretty red dress. Candles and electric bulbs dotted the corners of the room, but they were so dim, he could only see silhouettes as his eyes began to adjust. 

Everyone in the room was swaying in perfect harmony with one another, couples holding one another intimately as they attempted their best, most small spaced swing they could muster while occasionally sipping on glasses of liquor. Even from a tiny distance he could smell the alcohol wafting through the speakeasy; a smell which only intensified as he made his way in, adjusting the sleeves of his suit jacket as he wandered over toward the bar to get his well earned drink. 

Fate, of course, had other ideas. Not a second after he took his first step, a hand tapped on his shoulder lightly, and as he turned around, a familiar deep, feminine voice threatened to expose a smile as it asked, “Where the hell have you been?”

The moment he was facing her, Ben’s heart raced at the speed of sound. It was like the Wright Brothers flying the first plane, like the first shot fired in the war for America, like the first man setting foot on the North American continent tens of thousands of years ago, or every other epic event in the vast realm of human history. Relief flooded his veins at the increase in heart rate, because after only hours of searching, he’d found her in spite of a four year separation. A smile spread wide on his face as he took her in, and then he thought there was a chance that he might’ve fainted if he were a mortal man. 

“Hi, stranger,” she said, but he barely registered the words as he took in the sight of her, his breath leaving his body as he took in the new and modern Rey. 

Her hair was in a wavy bob that went just past her chin, the way most women were wearing it those days. He’d only ever seen her with longer tresses that flowed past her shoulders, but already he decided he liked that look, and it was possibly one of her best. The makeup she wore was darker than he’d ever seen her wear; highlighting the hazel of her eyes so they shone in the dim light of the room from beneath her dark eyeliner, and he wasn’t sure where to begin on her parted, deep red lips. 

But her makeup was only the beginning of the changes she’d made. As his eyes drifted down, he caught sight of a black dress with golden hued fringe cascading down its skirt, which stopped at her lower thighs — but that was nothing compared to the neckline that exposed just a  _ hint  _ of her small, yet visible, cleavage resting just beneath the locket he’d given her for Christmas — nearly causing his heart to give out. 

Eventually, he swallowed his anxiety, and gestured to her appearance. “You look… good…” 

Good was an understatement. Good was absolute rags compared to the way Rey looked that night. Gone were the days of dresses that covered every inch of her legs and headdresses and all sorts of constricting garments, and here was this short, skimpy little fringe thing that revealed a set of tanned, toned legs that shone beautifully in the dim light. And  _ fuck _ , Rey had nice legs. He was going to have many thoughts about those legs from then on.  _ Especially about what lay between them.  _

Forcing himself to get his mind out of the gutter, Ben shuddered. “I just mean… Hello, I’m… I’m glad you’re still here.”

A smirk crossed her features that suggested she knew exactly why he’d stuttered so awkwardly in his greeting, but she didn’t call him out on it. Instead, she shrugged, and sipped at the glass of wine in her hand. “Took you long enough to find me,” she teased, though there was a hint of bitterness to her tone that had guilt seizing his entire body. “The war ended three years ago, Ben. Where the bloody hell were you?”

His eyes drifted to the ground in shame. He couldn’t admit why he’d been gone for so long, he couldn’t. If he told her the truth, he risked ruining everything, and he wasn’t ready to do that yet, even if it meant he might actually make things better for himself in the long run. “I’m so sorry, Rey,” he replied, trying his hardest to shove down the sadness and regret that threatened to leak their way into his voice. “I should’ve come back sooner.”

“But you didn’t.” Her voice was bitter as he looked back up to meet her eyes again, and she shook her head. “I know it was only four years… I know that’s nothing compared to what we’ve had, but Ben… you could’ve been here sooner, and you weren’t. Where the hell did you go?”

“I stayed in Europe after the war was over. I… I helped rebuild the destroyed countryside.”

Rey’s disappointment softened some, but still he could see her lip quivering with emotions, some he couldn’t even name. “I can get on fine without you, it’s not as if my world revolves around you, but…” She reached up a hand, resting it softly on his cheek as she blinked a single tear from her eye. “It would have been nice to see you three years sooner.”

“I won’t do it again, I promise,” he whispered, then she removed her hand from his face, and he looked down at the drink she held in her other one. “I’m here to stay now…”

“Good.”

“So what do you say we both get another one of those and catch up on where the hell we’ve been for the past four years?”

Rey’s lips split into another grin, but she shook her head as she offered the glass to him. “I’ve had plenty already, so why don’t you finish this for me and we can have a dance instead?”

Impossibly enough, she managed to steal his breath yet again with that set of words, and as he took the glass from her hand with a nod, his jaw fell involuntarily slack. The first and last time they’d danced had been four centuries earlier in Venice, and this setting was vastly different. During the masquerade, they’d had space to move about the room, and they weren't going to be forced so closely together back then like they were going to be now. In the speakeasy, people were chest to chest and cheek to cheek, and there was no room for comfortable personal space. 

It was going to be one of the most publically intimate things they’d ever done, but Ben wasn’t going to let nerves deter him from making new memories with her. 

Keeping his eyes locked on hers, Ben pressed the glass to his lips, and slowly sipped the remainder of her wine into his mouth. The red liquid went down smoothly, the fruity tang of the wine leaving an interesting aftertaste in his mouth as he swallowed it down, then set the glass on a nearby table before offering her his hand. “May I have this dance?”

“I believe I asked that question first,” she corrected, offering him  _ her  _ hand in turn. 

Quiet laughter left them both, and the music flooded their ears as Ben put his hand in Rey’s, and allowed her to guide him the two steps onto the dance floor. His entire body buzzed like a copper wire as they faced one another, then she stepped forward, and allowed him to take her in his arms. She gasped softly as he pulled her close so that her chest was pressed against his — and  _ hell  _ he was already having a hard time not noticing the curve of her breasts against his upper abdominal muscles — causing him to chuckle low and deep. “If we’re going to do this, we’re going to have to get a lot closer,” he whispered. 

“Agreed,” she replied breathlessly, then Ben began to lead them into a quiet little swing, both of them lost completely in one another as the low tones of the band provided them the rhythm to dance to. 

Rey was warm in his arms, but she always had been. Whenever they held one another in the night to ward off their nightmares, they were always pressed so closely together that their shared warmth seemed to heat an entire room. He wondered vaguely if it was doing that now; if the way they were holding onto each other was causing the temperature to rise for everyone else, too. 

The heat wasn’t just something he could physically feel, though. It was also found in the depths of her eyes as they looked up at his, her irises dilated in the dim light of the room — but was the lack of lighting the only reason?

“So what happened to you for the last four years?” Ben asked as they swayed past a couple that was far more intoxicated than they were. “What’s your story?”

“I think I’m going to make  _ you  _ answer that question first,” she replied as she shifted forward so that they were cheek to cheek, and what she said next was whispered in his ear. “Since you made me wait.”

“Rey, I’m sorry…”

“Just tell me. You said you were aiding relief efforts, but where did you go? Who did you see?”

Ben owed her an explanation, really, he did, but he couldn’t quite find it within himself to tell her he’d been avoiding her for fear of rejection. He wasn’t ready to open that conversation again. “I went all over. Rey, I’m…” He paused, then pulled her a bit more tightly against him, causing her to gasp into his ear. The sound of it timed itself perfectly with the high note of the song that was playing, and together they made the most beautiful chorus. “I’m sorry, I just… I thought we’d still have time.”

“We did,” she assured him, pulling back as the singer at the front of the room began to croon another song. “And we do, and… you know better than anyone that we can’t live in the past, but… sometimes it’s all I have.”

“I know what you mean,” he replied, patting from her a little ways so he could spin her around in the small space. “Rey, I won’t do it again, I promise. If you tell me to be somewhere I’ll be there. You just have to say the word.”

“I’m holding you to that promise,” she told him, then he felt her hand shift on his shoulder so that her palm now rested over the upper part of his chest while she whispered in his ear, “But if you promise to tell me what happened when you’re ready, I’ll propose we drink ourselves numb to celebrate the new year and stay here dancing all night.”

Another laugh escaped him, and he nodded eagerly. “That sounds perfect, I’ll take it.” 

“Good, then let’s go drink every single glass of whiskey they’ll give us and hope it lets us forget the last four years.”

She made to separate from him, to end their dance and make her way toward that bar to get drinks, but Ben gripped her wrist first, and shook his head. “Can we finish this song first?” A blush crept up his cheeks as he told her his reason. “I… I rather enjoy dancing with you.” 

That vibrant, lively smile lit up her entire face again, sending Ben’s heart leaping in his chest. “I rather enjoy dancing with you, too,” she admitted, then she was properly back in his arms, allowing him to sway with her in their tiny little bubble of personal space until that song ended. 

When the last note faded out, Ben and Rey stepped back from one another, shy looks in their eyes as he offered her his arm, and guided them both over to the darkly colored bar. Neither of them said anything at first. They were too busy adjusting to the new sort of intimacy in the air between them as they walked, but then an idea came to his mind. He was there in New York for the long haul now. Unless something went horribly awry, or someone somehow managed to recognize him and see he hadn’t aged — which he doubted severely, since he knew no one in the city — he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Which meant… he needed to figure out how best to stay with her so they could soak up as much time together as possible. 

“So where are you staying?” he asked her as they approached the bar, then he held up two fingers to the bartender. 

“Living, you mean?”

“Ah, yes, of course,” he replied, a pink blush covering his cheeks that he could feel even in the dim light. “Where are you living these days?”

“A few blocks north of here,” she replied, then he watched a hint of sadness wash over her face, and he wished he could wipe it away. Seeing Rey’s sadness amplified his own, making him feel as though he was helpless to end her suffering, but… perhaps he only had to find out what was wrong.

“What’s wrong?”

Rey’s eyes looked up to meet his as she leaned against the bar, and he soon followed suit. She waited until he was comfortably adjusted against its wooden surface, then she pointed toward the stage. “I don’t suppose you remember my friend, Maz?”

It took him a moment, but once he was looking at the singer at the front of the bar, Ben recognized her as the woman hiding behind a hat at the restaurant with Rey four years prior. Nodding as he looked back, he reached his hand out toward hers, but didn’t grasp it in his fingers. “What about her?”

“We came up here just a few days after you left,” Rey told him, then she fell quiet as the bartender rested two glasses of whiskey in front of them. “Thought we’d wait here for her husband until the war was over…” 

Already, he could tell exactly where this was going. Sympathy filled him as he took his glass of whiskey in hand, and watched as she did the same. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault, there’s no need for you to apologize,” Rey told him, then she breathed out slowly as she watched Maz croon another song on the stage. “But she was devastated when it happened. It took her months before she allowed herself a day in the sun again.” More sadness filled her eyes, then those sorrowful, hazel irises were pointed at him again, and she gave him a grim smile. “And then the decade turned, and she’d always had a knack for singing, so she took up a job with the band playing tonight. They needed a singer, and… she fit the bill.

“That was why I came here tonight, to watch her sing. I’ve done it a few times now, since we started living together, but…” At this, Rey’s lips fell back down to their resting position, and she rested a hand on his arm. “I can tell she still needs someone. It’ll be a while yet before she’s fully recovered what the war took from her.”

“She can’t get him back. Death isn’t something that can be undone.”

“No, but she can repair her soul,” Rey explained. “She can bring  _ herself _ back.”

He had to admit she had a point there, and so he raised his glass to hers, tapping them together before he raised it to his lips, and sipped the whiskey like it was nothing. “Yes, she can,” Ben replied, watching as Maz’s voice guided couples on their gentle little sway through the dance floor. 

The woman beside him cleared her throat, bringing his attention back to her well made up — and still so  _ fucking  _ beautiful — face. “So that means… I’ve got a roommate, and I trust Maz, she’s wonderful, but we both know what she’ll think if I let you in with us and you’re staying in my bedroom.”

_ Would that be so bad?  _ His mind helplessly supplied. Would it be so terrible if the sultry voiced jazz singer thought he was making love to Rey every night?  _ Fuck,  _ he wished he was; he wished that was his reality, that he was rolling around on a mattress with her, tangling the sheets thoroughly while their hair became disheveled and she screamed his name from—

“Ben? Are you all right?” Rey asked, bringing him back to reality in time with a saxophone solo. 

At first, he jolted from the shock of hearing her voice, his whole body jumping from fright, but then he softened, and quirked an eyebrow as he took another sip of his drink. “Hmm?”

“I said I didn’t want Maz thinking I’m warming your bed for anything other than staving off nightmares, but…” She rested a hand on his arm. “It’s been a long four years without you, and we are far too old to care about any rumors spread about by the people I keep company with.” Her hand slid down his arm until her fingers wrapped around his free hand, but didn’t lace themselves together with his. “What I’m saying is… if you want to spend whatever time we have here together… my room is also yours, if you want it.”

Nearly choking on his own breath — though he really shouldn’t have been. How many times had they shared a damn bed at this point? — Ben slowly gave her a nod, and sipped again at his whiskey in time with her. “I’d love that.”

“Perfect, then where’re you staying? We’ll go there around midnight and grab your things, then head back home?” 

“Midnight, Hmm?” Ben asked.

“To celebrate the new year.” Then she laced her fingers with his, looking between his eyes as she spoke. “And if we get the chance, many more.”

“Do you really think this could be it?” His voice fell quiet as he thought back on all the painful times they’d tried and failed to attempt a life together. “Do you think we’ve finally found somewhere to stop running?”

“I don’t know,” she said, her response equally quiet as she downed the rest of her whiskey. “But I don’t want to think about the possibility that this isn’t our time yet… tonight… tonight we celebrate that we got the  _ chance  _ for a reunion.” She set the glass down, and almost immediately beckoned the bartender over to refill it. “Tonight… you’re going to dance and drink with me, and we’re going to stumble home completely wasted, praying we don’t get caught like all mortals do.”

It sounded perfect, and it was almost too good to be true, but they’d always at least been granted one day with each other. At the bare minimum, they were going to get twenty four blissful hours, and Ben couldn’t wait to find out what would become of them. “I'd like that,” he said as Rey’s glass was filled and his own was topped off.

“Then let’s drink,” Rey replied. 

*

The drinking wound up being a mistake. At least, it would have been if Rey weren’t holding him up by the arm he had wrapped around her shoulders, singing along to one of the songs her friend Maz had sang in the speakeasy as they strolled — or rather stumbled — down the street toward his hotel. 

“ _ Your eyes of blue, your kisses, too,”  _ they sang as they stumbled drunkenly around the corner, finally reaching the street where his hotel sat dimly lit on the far end.  _ “I never knew what they could do…” _

Ben froze for a moment, halting them both in their steps as the jazz tune in his head suddenly grew quiet. “Damn, what’s the next line?” he muttered to himself, feeling frustrated that through the haze of alcohol flooding his system, he couldn’t remember the words to a song he’d heard only an hour ago.

The woman beside him practically guffawed as she slapped a hand on his chest. “Bennn,” she slurred. “It’s the title of the song.”

“Yes, and I can’t remember it.” He looked down at her through eyes hooded not by seduction, but through alcohol. Shivers ran down her spine anyway, and he felt them beneath his arm, causing pride to swell within him along with a burgeoning sense of hope. “So what is the song called, Rey?”

Her answer came not in words, but in a lovely soprano that drifted softly on the wind as it sang,  _ “I can’t believe that you’re in love with me…” _

A blush rose to his cheeks as suddenly the rest of the words filled into his brain, and his whole face perked up as he rejoined her in the song. By some miracle, they managed to not get caught in spite of how loud they were, and the lyrics filled the street with their joyous, romantic message as just what they were saying flew over their heads. 

_ “And after all is said and done,”  _ Ben continued to sing as they walked through the lobby of his hotel, remaining completely ignorant to the man behind the desk staring at him with his mouth agape.  _ “To think that I’m the lucky one…” _

“Ben, you need to be quiet, people will hear you,” Rey warned him, but there was laughter threatening to break through her voice, and a smile parting those beautifully colored lips of hers that let him know she was mostly just kidding. “We can’t get arrested.”

“Ah, let them.” He swatted a hand casually at the air, watching his hand move fuzzily in his drunken vision as the rest of the song floated at the forefront of his mind. 

Another laugh entered his ears as they walked up a staircase and away from the lobby. “Ben…”

He only grinned in response.  _ “I can’t believe…” _ Pausing briefly, he reached down for her hand, stepping back so that he had ample space to spin her around, causing her to whoop laughter as she twirled. The fringe on her dress caught the light in the spin, making her seem as if she were lit up in a flame as she came back into his arms, and he caught her in a waltz position, not at all unlike the dance they’d shared in Venice so, so long ago.  _ “... that you’re in love with…”  _

The last word lingered hesitantly on his lips as his eyes caught sight of hers, and suddenly the meaning of the song began to hit him in full force. He knew he was in love with her, and they both knew there was something between them, but did they dare let this be the moment they acknowledged it? 

As he let that one, last, “ _ me, _ ” fall from his lips, he still wasn’t sure. Regardless, it earned him another grin from the woman in his arms, and Rey shook her head as she looked up at him, and slowly took a step back from the tight embrace. 

Disappointment filled him immediately. “Where are you going?”

“We need to find your room, Ben. We need to sleep off the liquor.” She offered him her hand again. “Show me the way?”

Staring at that hand for a moment, he could see all the times it had been offered out to him in his head. They’d started out adversaries. They had hated one another, and now they were strolling through hotels singing love songs together like it was the most natural thing in the world.  _ But it was.  _ “Sure,” he told her, then he took her hand, and led her down a hallway, unsure just how they wound up there in the first place as they strode toward his room. 

The hallway felt like it was spinning, and Ben was both drunk on alcohol and Rey as he found his room, and searched his coat pocket for the key. Her hand never left his as his hands trembled in the warmth of his pocket until the cool metal was jingling in his it. As he brought them out and inserted them into the lock, she leaned against him, and sighed contentedly in her intoxicated state, her eyes closing from bliss as she leaned her head on one of his broad shoulders. 

That feeling nearly made him drop the key, but somehow he managed to unlock the door instead, and soon they were stumbling inside. The door closed behind them at some point, but he barely registered anything beyond the snapping sound that accompanied it as Rey tugged on his hand, causing him to trip over his own feet as they made their way into the central part of the room. More obnoxious laughter spilled out of both of them as they struggled to maintain their balance, but failed miserably. 

Both of them wound up falling onto the bed — rather, Rey fell onto the bed, and because she was still holding Ben’s hand, he fell on top of her, and instantly, he froze as he felt her warmth beneath him. More flashbacks to Venice filled his mind, causing him to recall just what had happened the last time he’d been on top of her between her legs. He wondered if this time, the ending would be similar, only she would be joining him instead of leaving him alone. 

Reality slowly drifted back to him, but it was lining up heavily with his fantasies. She was looking up at him with hooded eyes, and her lips were parted ever so slightly so that he could feel her breath ghosting over his skin. They were close, agonizingly so. If he wanted to, all he had to do was lean forward a scant few inches, and kiss her like he desperately wanted to. There wasn’t anything stopping them if he thought about it. All that was holding him back was his own fear, and he knew this was true as he looked into Rey’s eyes and saw the same desire he felt in his soul reflected in the hazel of her irises. 

Swallowing his fear, Ben watched as Rey lifted her head up from the bed, her eyes drifting slowly shut as she came closer, and he finally allowed his own to close in acceptance. With a shaky breath, he moved forward to meet her in the middle, feeling as though his entire body was about to burst into flames as he let himself enjoy one weak little moment, his inhibitions lowered from the alcohol coursing through his veins —  _ the alcohol _ . 

Suddenly a very valid reason not to do this presented itself to him. The fact that he and Rey were so inebriated meant that neither could fully commit to the kiss. Neither of them could quite consent completely, and on top of that, Ben was fairly certain there were pieces of the night that he wasn’t going to remember in the morning. And when it came to kissing Rey, he wanted to remember every single second. 

Though it pained him to do so, he put a hand between them, the side of his pinky finger cutting into the valley between her breasts ever so gently as he paused his movement just millimeters from those stupidly tempting lips of hers. “Wait,” he whispered, then both their eyes shot open, and he pulled back to see the betrayal and confusion on her face. “We can’t do this now. We’re too drunk.”

“ _ Oh,  _ why’d you remind me?” she grumbled, and he chuckled lightly to himself as he rested his forehead against hers. 

“Rey, my memory is not great right now, and there’s a lot… a lot of things…” His voice was starting to slur, and he blinked forcefully, attempting to keep himself awake as the liquor threatened to pull him into sleep. “... a lot of things I want to tell you… very badly… but I don’t want to say them when there’s a chance… neither of us is going to remember in the morning.” 

“There’s a lot of things I want to tell you, too,” she whispered, her hand gripping his arm as she wandered the border between consciousness and unconsciousness herself. “But, Ben… none of this…” Rey breathed hard, as if she too were trying in vain to stay awake for just a few seconds longer. “None of this… should be said right now.”

He nodded as he pulled away, then he rolled off of her and shifted so that his feet were no longer dangling off of the bed. “Then let’s do what we do best,” he said softly. “Let me hold off your nightmares… for however long I’m in your company.”

A contented hum escaped her as she crawled up to his side, then she let him wrap her up in his arms as they lay there beside one another, silence falling over them even as the song they’d been dinging looped in his head. Sleep slowly overtook him in a peaceful wave of blackness that encompasses his vision the moment his eyes shut, and the warmth of her in his arms sent him almost immediately into dreams, causing him to be fully lost to the words she murmured ever so faintly to the otherwise empty room. 

*

The next morning was another blissful one in which he woke up with Rey’s arms wrapped around his waist. They’d shifted from their original position in the night; winding up with Ben facing the wall as she cradled him from behind, her front pressed flush against his back as they slept. The realization of it had him smiling as the memories from the night before came back to him one by one, and while they were a bit fuzzy at the end, he still remembered enough for his heart to swell at the thought of it. 

If he closed his eyes, he could smell the smoke and booze mingling with perfume and cologne; could still hear low bass tones and whispered voices; and still see the gleam in her eyes as she smiled at him and spoke to him for the first time in four years. It was a sensory overload of the best kind, and he wanted to bask in it forever. 

Despite being immortal, forever never quite seemed to happen for him, and just seconds later, that was proven true as Rey groaned against the back of his neck upon waking. It wasn’t much, but for some odd reason, his cock found the rush of warm air on his skin rather arousing, and he felt himself harden in response. “Oh… Maz is going to wonder where I was last night,” Rey muttered, then he felt the sudden loss of her warmth at his back as she rolled onto hers. 

He mourned the loss instantly. “You didn’t go anywhere exciting, you were with me.”

“Yes, but when last she saw me, I was leaving a speakeasy, rather drunk, and in the company of a man she’s never met,” she pointed out. “That looks rather suspicious even knowing nothing of the sort has ever happened between us.”

“Nothing of what sort?” He knew damn well what she was talking about, but a large, teasing, playful part of him wanted to hear her say it. “I haven’t got the faintest idea of what you’re talking about.”

The back of Rey’s hand came round and smacked his bicep, causing him to laugh as he rolled over, and sat up in the bed, taking in their disheveled appearances as she rose to meet him. She was right. They did look like they’d just spent the evening thoroughly entangled in one another in the most intimate way physically possible and  _ fuck,  _ Ben wished they had. “You know damn well what I’m talking about, you utter child,” she teased, then his best and only friend cleared her throat as she stretched her legs and feet — still covered by her stockings and her shoes — before standing up from the bed. “But it doesn’t matter, she’ll care less once we explain what really happened and you’ve been living with us for a while.”

“Won’t people talk if we live together?” Ben asked. 

“They talked in Portugal and they talked in West Virginia,” Rey protested, then she offered him her hand. “Frankly, I don’t give a damn. I think we’ve finally got some time on our hands to spend together, and I fully intend to take advantage of every minute of it… What about you?”

Ben had never taken a hand so fast in his life, and within minutes of her pulling him from the bed, he and Rey were checked out of the hotel, and on their way into another part of Manhattan to her place. His heart raced as he followed her down the street, both of them carrying his luggage in their hands while keeping stern expressions in their journey through the increasingly crowded streets. Strange looks were tossed their way everywhere they passed, and it felt like every citizen of New York City had given them a once over. He knew what each of them was thinking, and he was rather proud of it. His only regret was that it wasn’t reality. 

Eventually, they arrived at a small but charming house with a little garden out front that was being tended to by a dark skinned woman wearing a pale pink dress and pearl earrings. She was bent over her flowerbed with a watering can, face stern as she watched the water fall until she was satisfied with her work, then she straightened up, and caught sight of Ben and Rey as they approached her. A teasing eyebrow quirked on her brow, and she put her hands on her hips as she shook her head at the two. “I get nothing from you about where you’re going or where you’ve been, and you show up at my house a day later with a man?” 

“It’s my house too, Maz,” Rey reminded her roommate with a laugh, then she gestured to the man standing at her side as they approached. “And that’s no way to treat a guest of mine.”

“A guest?” Maz set down her watering can, and brushed off her hands before she stepped forward, and gave Ben a once over before looking over at Rey again. “He didn’t defile you, did he?”

A pink blush crept up Ben’s cheeks, and he looked down at the ground, shuffling awkwardly on his feet — certainly not helping Rey’s incoming argument that they certainly had not had sex the night before — as his friend protested Max’s accusation. “No! No he’s just a very…” She looked up at him with a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “A very old and dear friend.”

“And what is this, ‘old and very dear friend’s name?”

Finally finding a cue to speak, Ben stepped forward, blinking at how he towered over the woman in front of him as he offered her his hand. “I’m Ben, ma’am, Ben… Solo,” he told her, feeling relieved when she took his hand, and shook it firmly. 

“Polite, I like him already,” Maz said as she pulled back, then she turned back to Rey. “And how long is he going to be our guest?”

Rey’s lips pressed into a hard line, then she scratched the back of her head. “He’s…” Se paused, seeming to assess how best to explain the situation. “He’s going to be staying with us for as long as he’s willing.”

“As long as he’s willing?”

“Listen, I can’t explain, but Ben and I… I haven’t seen him since before the war, Maz, and… I’ve missed him.” She took her roommate’s hands in her own, and her expression grew serious. “I just want him in my life again, and we’ve always lived together before.”

“Can I trust him?”

“Yes, and more importantly you can trust  _ me _ ,” Rey said, then she stepped back. “Just say yes, I’ll do you a favor. Anything you ask.”

At this, Maz perked up, her own sober tone becoming a bit more hopeful. “ _ Anything _ ?”

“Anything.”

Ben was given another once over, then Maz nodded. “You can stay,” she told him, but before he and Rey could turn to one another in celebration, she held up a finger. “But I’m staking my claim on that favor you owe me immediately.”

Both of them froze, then Maz stepped back. “I bought a camera yesterday, and I don’t exactly wish to take a picture of myself,” she told them, then she took another step back. “Now that the new year is over… I finally have time to test it out, and I want you and your new lover—“

Rey’s eyes rolled. “He’s not my—“

“—your new lover to be my first subjects,” Maz continued as if she hadn’t heard her friend’s protests. 

They both froze, then looked down at the clothes they were wearing, which were heavily wrinkled from the night before, and Rey’s makeup was smudged over them both from the way they’d slept in his bed. “But, Maz, we’re still in last night’s clothes, shouldn’t we change first?” she asked, but the woman in question was already walking into the house, ignorant of the dilemma going on behind her. 

“She’s an interesting character, your roommate,” Ben mused, causing Rey to laugh nervously as he spoke. “Does she always ask odd favors of you?”

“Sometimes,” Rey admitted. “Truth be told, I think she was just looking for an excuse to test out her new camera, and she didn’t really care about getting a favor from me.”

Another laugh was shared between the two of them, then his eyes fell down to the base of her neck, where the locket he’d bought her for Christmas four years earlier still rested comfortably. “Have you had your picture taken?”

She shook her head, and he felt his heart flutter against his rib cage as she gripped the locket — gripped the image of him — in her hand. “No, I haven’t,” she answered him honestly. “I just… never wound up in front of a camera.”

Their conversation from 1917 rang clearly in his mind, and he recalled with a shiver how he’d told her she was beautiful as they stood in the locket store — the confession still fresh on his mind as he kissed her like he’d never kissed anyone before — and how he’d felt another shift in the relationship between them. “It would seem that’s about to change,” he said softly, watching as Maz returned from the house with her little camera and a smile on her face. 

“I think you’re right,” Rey whispered, then the two of them turned their eyes on her roommate as she approached, wielding a tan colored box camera that she had to hold with both hands. 

“I saved up many nights of tips for this,” Maz said as she walked around behind them, and then began to set up the camera to take their picture. “There’s too many memories lost to the world every day. With this, maybe, just maybe, I’ll be able to keep some alive.”

Ben felt her words strike a chord deep within his soul, and as he and Rey turned to face her he realized just how true that was. How much of his life had he forgotten? How much of his memory was lost to time? In living memory, he’d seen so many things, witnessed great tragedies and triumphs, and most of the world had forgotten every single one of them, but not him. Maz was right, preserving those memories, those historical events was going to be a difficult task to keep up with, but he knew they ought to start. 

And they were going to, beginning with the moment he and Rey took their first photograph together in nearly ten centuries of knowing one another. 

“Step back, closer to the house, I want you in focus, but it in the background,” Maz instructed them, then they both took a few steps back until she told them to stop, and looked out at them from behind the camera. “Now stand close to one another, and… Rey, take his arm as if you’re going for a stroll.”

Awkward chuckles erupted from both of them, and two sets of cheeks flushed the color red as they obeyed the command, and he felt her warmth at his side once more. Rey’s hand wrapped comfortingly around his arm as they stood in position, and he felt her thumb rubbing gently against the material of his suit jacket sleeve.  _ God _ , he’d missed her. How he’d survived four more years without her — how he’d previously gone  _ centuries  _ without seeing her face — was now a mystery to him. 

“Do I have to do anything special?” Rey asked him quietly as Maz removed a cap from the lens of her camera.

Ben shook his head. “No, just stay still and hold onto me.”

She fell silent after that, and they both turned their gazes on the lens of Maz’s camera as she announced she was taking the picture. Her grip tightened on his arm as the other woman pressed a button, and suddenly there was a loud whirring noise accompanied by a small flash, then silence. 

A few seconds went by in the aftermath, all three refusing to move out of fear of blurring the picture, but then Maz gave them the all clear, and the iron grip on his arm loosened as Rey relaxed beside him. Noticeably, though, she didn’t let go, and he turned his head to see her beaming up at him like he was the sun itself. “What?” he asked. 

“Now there’s a picture of me,” she told him, then her hand slipped down to lace their fingers together. “Are you going to put me in a locket, too?”

Ben shook his head. “You? In a locket?” He almost laughed at the thought. Rey deserved better than to be hidden away in a locket, no she deserved to be displayed to the world, seen by any who walked into his home so he could point out to them the most wonderful woman he knew. “No, you… I want to put that on our mantle, I want everyone to see it. I want you to look at that picture every day and see how far we’ve come.”

She leaned against him then, resting her head on his shoulder as she sighed. “That sounds nice.”

A contented hum left him at the contact, and he found himself once again grateful that he was finally back in her presence. God, he’d missed feeling like this, like the world had finally stopped spinning with reckless abandon and slowed to a gentle rotation like a casual waltz. It was the feeling that accompanied each time he was with her, and he was excited to finally get to experience it for what he hoped would be a long time. As long as there were no wars, no conflicts, and no people around to recognize his failure to age, they would be fine. 

“What are you standing around for?” Maz shouted at them suddenly, and he realized the entire time he’d been day dreaming about his life with Rey, she’d been putting away her camera. “Get inside! We need to get the two of you into fresh clothing.”

Cheeks flushing again, Ben and Rey muttered their apologies, then, arms still joined, they walked into the house ready to take another chance at the life they wanted to live together. 


	21. New York City

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long. I finished up geology field camp only on Wednesday and I’ve been spending time catching up with friends and family ever since. I’m done now, though, so I’ve got time to write this fic again. 
> 
> Also we have a [Playlist!!!](https://open.spotify.com/user/1xcvdnl55wq9j16bvcj9wif0m/playlist/3jBAwwmoZBs4vJaD4Q71he?si=4rKKTnxSRx-YpvdVLfF-pA) I’ve had this for a while but I figure why not make it public knowledge, so there she is!

The next six months were something of a blissful haze that trapped itself beautifully in her memory. Every moment with Ben in her company only got better than the last, but also harder. Rey’s burgeoning feelings for him started to get harder and harder to hide, and as the time passed, she started to wonder why she was hiding them in the first place. 

Their daily routine didn’t help matters much. Every morning they woke up in each other’s arms, and sometimes, if she woke up early enough, she swore she felt Ben press gentle kisses to the crown of her head. It was a subtle shift from all the mornings they’d spent together previously, but something told her it meant more than just an expression of their friendship. It was more intimate somehow, and she hadn’t ever thought that possible. 

After that, she tended to fall back asleep, only to wake up in bed alone to find that Ben had made breakfast for both herself and Maz. This made their other roommate grow rather attached to him, and by the time they’d been living together for six months, she was making jokes that if Rey didn’t marry him, she was going to. Both women had laughed awkwardly at this, but left the immortal one with an unexpected ping of jealousy swimming in her veins. 

That conversation swam in her head the morning of June thirtieth, 1922 as she woke up once more in Ben’s arms. Though the morning light was drifting through her window, her eyes drifted shut, and she allowed her breathing to remain even as she felt him flex around her when he came into wakefulness. A smile twitched its way onto her face, but she made no other movements as she felt warm lips press to the back of her head, lingering for a touch longer than was necessary before they pulled back, and he sighed into her hair.

The feeling that brought her was indescribable, and she realized as a rush of heat flooded through her system that she needed to tell him how she felt. Technically he was aware there was something between them, but he didn’t know just how much she loved him, and after the conversation with Maz, she knew she couldn’t keep hiding it from him. 

All she had to do was find the right moment. 

Beside her, Ben’s breathing evened out, and Rey quickly realized he’d fallen back to sleep. Breath catching in her chest, she began to untangle herself from his arms, praying he wouldn’t wake up as she rose into a sitting position, and looked down at him. Her heart melted anew at the sight of Ben’s sleeping face. Though she’d seen it countless times before, it still struck a chord with her how peaceful he looked. His inability to age had never been more prevalent than it was in his sleep, and she found it just as endearing as it was tragic. 

Without thinking, Rey reached down, and caressed his cheek gently with one hand. The moment she made contact with his skin, his eyes fluttered open, and her name tumbled confusedly from his lips. “Shhh,” she whispered, then she really wasn’t thinking as she moved her hand back into his hair, stroking it deftly as she leaned down, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Go to sleep, I’ll be back soon.”

He said nothing, and she felt him relax beneath her touch. The corners of her mouth twitched up into a smile as she rose slowly from the bed, and let her hands fall away from the man she loved. As she stood, she smoothed out the wrinkles on the silky, peach colored nightgown she’d worn to bed, then reached over a nearby armchair for the dressing gown of a similar color she’d lain over it the night before. Throwing it on as casually as she could, Rey then made her way out of the bedroom and toward the staircase leading to the kitchen, where she could already smell the coffee Maz had made wafting through the halls. 

_ This was going to be a fun conversation _ . 

Taking in a deep breath, Rey finished tying her dressing gown, and walked into the kitchen to find her quirky roommate was sipping quietly at a cup as she read the morning’s paper. “You slept in,” Maz observed. “You’re usually down here at a quarter after seven and it’s half past eight.”

Rey awkwardly scratched the back of her head. “Is it really that late?”

“Yes.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” she said with what she hoped was a casual tone as she joined Maz at the table, and a coffee cup was pushed in front of her. “Thank you.”

Her friend smirked at her knowingly, those unexpectedly ancient eyes of hers seeming to peer right into Rey’s soul. “I made it a few minutes ago. Figured after the night you probably had you might need it.”

It took an embarrassing amount of time for her to understand the implications of that sentence, but when she did, her cheeks turned a vibrant shade of red that one couldn’t even replicate with rouge, and she looked down at the table. “No! No, it’s not like that at all.”

“I’m sure it’s not.” Maz pointed an accusing finger at her. “I’ve been watching the two of you dance around one another for the better part of a year now… and I don’t know if you’re just a fool or if you’re denying it, but you have to know…”

Rey’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as she took her first sip of coffee. “Know what, Maz?”

A scoff, then Maz bower her head, and leaned forward, resting her crossed arms on the table as she looked her friend in the eyes. “That man is in love with you.”

The statement was perfectly timed with another sip of her coffee, and as a result she nearly choked on it, spitting it back into her cup as she fought desperately to get air in her lungs. “ _ He’s what? _ ”

“Don’t play stupid with me, Rey. We’ve been friends far too long for that,” Maz warned her, then the accusatory finger was back. “He’s in love with you, you can see it in his eyes. He looks at you like you’re the sun and he’s been washed away in the rain for years.”

Denial surged through her like a tidal wave. Sure, something lay between herself and Ben, and a scant few times she’d thought about telling him her true feelings, but she didn’t think — no. No, it couldn’t be. Could it? Was Ben  _ in love  _ with her? There was an attraction. Sure. But love?  _ Love?  _ Preposterous. “No, it’s impossible.”

“And you love him, too,” Maz said, and Rey found herself utterly frozen. “But that frightens you, doesn’t it?”

Her breath hitched as she set down her coffee cup, and closed her eyes as she worked to compose her thoughts. After what felt like forever, she opened them, and allowed herself to nod. “Yes,” she replied quietly. “I…” Another deep breath, then she swallowed nervously. “I love Ben. I have for…”  _ Centuries…  _ “A while…”

Max leaned back in her seat, triumphant. “There it is.”

“And I want to tell him,” she admitted, the words leaving her in a rush. Once she’d started, she found it was difficult to stop. “I want to tell him more than anything, but I don’t know how. I don’t know what to say or how to say it… and what’s between us is…”

“Is what?”

“Intense, all surrounding, and the most real thing I’ve ever felt.” The last several centuries swam in her mind as if it were just a sea of memories, and she recalled the singular events that built what lay between them one by one, wondering which of them had changed the two irrevocably so that they fell for one another at a snail’s pace. “He’s my oldest, truest friend, and I… Damn it, Maz, I want to tell him… I just need to find the words.”

A chuckle, then Maz took another sip of her coffee. “Sometimes words aren’t necessary,” she pointed out. “Actions speak louder.”

“What do I do then?”

“Sleep in late.”

“... Maz,” Rey grumbled, then she straightened up, and changed the subject. “I came down here because I wanted to know how to approach this with him. We’ve shared a friendship for more time than you can begin to imagine — I’ve known him most of my life.”

The other woman sat back in her chair. “Then he should be the easiest person in the world to talk to,” she told Rey, voice sincere as she looked her in the eyes. “You know him better than anyone else, and he knows you the same way. You can do this. You can tell him. The only thing standing in your way is yourself.”

Rey felt a shy smile twitch the corners of her mouth up. “When did you become so wise?”

“Some people are born with wisdom, and others have it thrust upon them.” Maz paused then, taking a sip of her coffee as suddenly footsteps sounded from upstairs. “I think your  _ friend  _ is awake.”

Cheeks flushed, Rey looked down at her coffee, taking a sip of it as Maz stood up from the table suddenly, and set down her cup. “Where are you going?”

“I need to rehearse with the band.”

“It’s only nine?”

“Rehearsal starts early today,” Maz replied nonchalantly, her voice indicating a little white lie that Rey had no choice but to let slide as she watched the young woman flit about the room gathering her things. “Tell Ben I said ‘good morning,’ then tell him what we discussed.”

Fear suddenly coursed through her veins, and she began to wonder if she had the courage to go through with her plans. “Maz, wait!” she cried, but her roommate was already out the door, and she heard the key turning in the lock. Aside from Ben’s encroaching footsteps, Rey was now the sole person in the room, and those burgeoning feelings inside of her were still threatening to burst forth and make themselves known. 

Her heart was utterly pounding as he approached, and she made an effort to sip her coffee as calmly as she could, but was disappointed to realize that the cup was now empty. Given nothing to distract her or avoid conversation with, Rey sat back in her chair, and closed her eyes as she listened to Ben distantly clearing his throat, then he took a few more steps before she was certain he was in the room with her. 

“Morning,” his deep voice rang out, causing her eyes to open as if he’d commanded them to do so.  _ Damn him.  _ It didn’t help her raging thoughts that he was wearing no shirt beneath the flannel robe he had on, only a pair of black pants. She vaguely recalled him muttering something about how hot it was the night before, but she didn’t remember the moment he’d — had he taken his shirt off in the middle of the night? “You were up early.”

His observation brought her back to reality, and she shook her head as she laughed. “No, I really wasn’t,” she replied. “I was up an hour later than normal. We slept in this morning.” Heat rushed through her as she recalled Maz’s double meaning from just a few minutes prior, and she hoped her cheeks hadn’t colored again. 

“Did we?” Ben looked around the room, searching for the grandfather clock Maz had kept from her late husband at the far end. “Ah, we did.”

A soft giggle left Rey as he sat down at the table next to her, then she offered him her hand, watching with a fluttering heart as he took it, and his thick fingers enveloped hers. “I… I’m glad you’re awake,” she told him, then she took in a deep breath. “There was something…” Another breath. “Something I wanted to discuss… with you…”

“Are you all right, Rey?” Ben’s eyes were full of concern as they looked between hers. “You look nervous.”

“I’m fine.” She waved off his worries with a dismissive hand, then she covered their joined hands with a second one of hers, using him as an anchor as she struggled to find the words to say. It wasn’t going to be easy. It was going to probably be the hardest thing she’d ever done. Centuries of tension lay between them; a history more rich than anyone could ever hope to have with another person, and she did not want to ruin this moment. This was the day, the hour, the minute, and second she finally was going to tell him she loved him, and panic was rising within her. It surged and tore apart her insides, making her feel queasy, nauseous, and terrified as it spun around her like a terrifying hurricane, spinning and spinning until suddenly —

It stopped, and she was a boat anchored at sea, bobbing peacefully in the waves that came after the storm, the sun shining down on her face to let her know it was going to be okay. The time had come for words. She was ready to take the boat and point it toward the one person she’d ever called home. 

“I just… I want to tell you something, and I need you to say nothing, not a single word, until I’m done.”

His brows furrowed, but he nodded, and gripped her hand a little more tightly, anchoring her further. “Go ahead.”

Breathing deeply one last time, Rey gripped his hand more tightly than she ever had, then loosened her grip as she met his eyes. “Ben, four years ago, you asked me why I kissed you, and I…” She shook her head. “I was vague in my words… I… I gave you the impression that it was just a goodbye… I tried to say it meant nothing, and I told you I wasn’t ready for anything… but…” Her eyes fell from his, and but she could feel him still staring right into her soul. “Ben I just didn’t know what you felt for me or what you do, and regardless of what you feel, I owe you the truth, and the truth?” Looking up at him again, she watched sunlight filter in through the window, catching fire in the gold flecks of his irises as he listened to her speak. 

Steeling herself one last time, Rey felt a lump form in her throat, and she ran a thumb over his hand, relieved that he hadn’t pulled away at that point as she finally spoke the truth she’d been holding back for centuries. “The truth is… I love you. I… I really love you. I love you to the point where it consumes my soul, and every day I spend near you I want to shout it out loud, but I’ve always been afraid.” She swallowed back the sobs that threatened her voice, feeling it grow shaky as she blinked tears free from their confines. They rolled lazily down her cheeks as she closed her eyes, and continued admitting her deepest secret. “And every day we’re apart, you’re in my thoughts. I don’t know when it started, I can’t think of the moment that I looked at you and realized I was in love with you. I know such a moment must exist, or we wouldn’t be here, but I can’t find it. Maybe it was Portugal on the beach, or that stupid masquerade, but I don’t know and I don’t care.

“What I do care about is you, and… and you… you always look at me and I can only hope you’re thinking the same thing… because it’s been eating at me for longer than I can remember. So with that said, I want you to… I want you to speak now…” She opened her eyes, blinking more tears as she caught sight of his, watching prismatic colors flicker in and out of the misty brown. “I want you to tell me if I’m wrong, and if I am, then we never have to speak of this again. We never have to acknowledge this happened, and I will quietly deal with this and try to forget about it. 

“But if I’m right, then… I’m ready to explore whatever this is if you are… I want to go see films, dance at speakeasies, and do whatever it is people in love do, because I’ve never loved anyone like I love you, and…” Another pause, then she felt her voice tremble as she finally finished. “And I want to know what that’s like… with you…” Pause. Another moment’s silence, then she let out a shaky exhale “You… you can say something now.”

The look in his eyes was the most impossible, wonderful thing she’d ever seen. It was as if he’d been seeing the world in gray the whole time, and was just now seeing a myriad of colors in the form of her. His own breathing shuddered, his entire chest heaving as he looked at her in disbelief, repose, and sheer and utter delight. Tears dropped down onto his cheeks, and he whispered something that sounded like her name before he reached across the space between them, then his hand cupped the base of her skull, and his lips were finally pressed to hers in a loud, bold, wordless declaration of how he felt for her. 

As Ben’s hand fisted in her hair, Rey’s mind went into a tailspin, and she felt like the entire world was suddenly brighter, as if she were enveloped in a brilliant, white light. All of the darkness of the last one thousand years had hung over her like a terrifying shadow, haunting her eternally with all the things she’d seen and done. Now that was gone, and all that existed was the sunlight and the warmth it brought; all that existed was his lips on hers and his hand in her hair. 

Everything was so serene, so comforting, and that foreign concept of home seemed familiar again in his arms as their lips moved in a perfect harmony. It was as if this was what they’d been meant to do all along. They were never meant to fight. They were never meant for hatred or a feud that lasted centuries. They weren’t even meant to just be companions through life, not just two people sharing a close friendship. No, they’d been meant for more all along, and she shivered at the realization as she let go of his hand with one of hers, and rested it on his chest. 

Ben’s heart was pounding even harder than hers was, and she nearly laughed at the thought, breaking the kiss for half a second to giggle before she dove back in. She then slid her hand up to caress his jaw as she kissed him slowly and deeply, taking her time to learn properly just how he kissed. A wet tear found its way down to her thumb, and she gingerly wiped it away from his cheek even though she couldn’t tell which of them it had come from. 

It could’ve been another century, and it could’ve been another five minutes. Rey wasn’t sure, but by the time they pulled away, she knew for damn certain exactly what it was that Ben felt for her. Any fear she had was removed by that kiss, washed away by their tears, and obliterated into nothing but dust by the way he looked at her. His eyes were hooded as he pulled away, but finally she could see something in his gaze she’d only ever hoped to see before. 

They were both panting as they pulled back, both completely lost in each other still as silence filled them in the aftermath. It was all too much and not enough at the same time, but it was the most beautiful memory to ever be etched onto Rey’s mind. 

Up until that point, at least. She wagered something else would come up further on down the line now that he’d all but told her “yes.”

Ben leaned forward then, and rested his forehead against hers. “I’ve felt it, too,” he breathed, finally putting into words what he said through his kiss, voice trembling harder with every word. “I’ve wanted to say something for centuries, but… up until this moment, Rey… I didn’t know…”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I should’ve said something sooner.”

“No.” He shook his head, and she felt a hand stroke her hair as he pulled back from her, and they stared at one another through tear filled eyes. “Rey, those were the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard, and I never want you to be sorry for them. I could’ve said something, too, and I should’ve.”

“What do you mean?”

“Rey, when we were in Portugal, I wasn’t going to go to the new world,” he admitted, and she watched another tear roll down his cheeks. “I was starting to notice I was falling in love with you, and that frightened me… so I tried putting some distance between us, and… when I saw you in Venice again all I did was fall harder.”

His name fell breathlessly from her lips, and she let go of his hand to pull him tightly into an embrace, holding him close against her as she buried her face in his neck. “How did we get here?” she asked softly. 

“I don’t know.” His voice was a whisper, carried lightly on his breath as it left his lungs and ghosted over her skin, then he pulled away, looking at Rey as if he were seeing her for the first time. “But we’re here, and… And… I want to explore what this is… I want to know what it’s like to be loved by you.”

“I want to know that, too,” she replied softly, then she took his hand in hers, kissing it gingerly before holding it close to her chest. “But we should take it slow, just see where it goes. I don’t want to rush this.”

“Rey, with us, slow won't be a problem,” he reminded her, then they both burst into a fit of laughter. “But we should do something together to… to celebrate this — to celebrate  _ us _ . After all these centuries, we’ve earned it… and you did say something about seeing films and going dancing.”

Heart racing, she gave him a nod, and brought their joined hands up to rest her chin over their knuckles. “Those both sound lovely.”

“Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind doing them tonight… With me?”

Rey practically snorted her laughter. “Who else would I do those things with, Ben?” she asked, then she kissed his hand again. “But that sounds an awful lot like you’re trying to court me.”

Both of them blushed as their gazes fell downward, then she felt his hand on her cheek, and he shook his head. “We are both so old…” He chuckled to himself as he tilted her chin up, gently forcing her to look at him. “But even you must know courting is becoming a thing of the past, and… the modern age is much more about spending time with someone you’re actually in love with than someone society deems your perfect match. So, Rey… I am not courting you, I’m asking you to spend an evening with me… as a date…”

“That sounds vastly superior to courting,” she replied breathlessly, then she cleared her throat, and let go of his hand before standing up from the table. 

Betrayal and confusion rose to Ben’s eyes. “Where are you going?”

“Upstairs to change,” she told him, then she glanced at his night clothes. “You should, too. I don’t know about you, but I don’t intend to spend our first day together sitting inside on my ass. There’s a whole city out there.”

Relief filled his gaze, then he stood up with her, and reached out for her hand. Giving him the smallest flicker of a smile, she took it, and allowed him to lead her out of the kitchen up toward their bedroom. A nervous sort of excitement filled her as they walked up the stairs one after the other. They’d been in this bedroom together countless times, and they’d held each other close night after night, but this time was different. This time they had just confessed feelings they’d been holding in for centuries, and there was no telling how it would impact them both as they walked toward their white, wooden door. 

They’d just promised to take it slow, but the heat radiating from Ben’s hand to hers as they walked made it difficult to focus on anything but the thought of taking off his clothes and shoving him down onto the bed—

_ Stop it _ , she told herself. They had plenty of time for that. There was absolutely no need for them to rush into anything. They had forever, and while Rey had no intentions of waiting forever to make Maz regret inviting him into her home, she knew she could wait at least a little while. The relationship between them was something beautiful, something soft and sweet that needed to grow at its own pace like it always had.

The door creaked and groaned as he pushed it open, then the two of them all but tip-toed in. Rey let go of his hand then, and made her way toward the closet on the far side of the room, wondering exactly what she was going to wear that day with an anxiety she hadn’t felt in centuries. Ben followed suit, both of them walking into their respective sides of the closet as they searched for their day clothes. For a few minutes the only sound in the room was rustling as they both searched for something to wear, neither speaking a word until they both made their way out of the closet, and into their bedroom again. 

It was then that Rey realized something important. They’d always dressed with their backs to one another in the same room, but they’d never done it while actively aware that the other person was in love with them. The thing between them was still so fresh. It was raw and bleeding in the open air like a beautiful sort of wound, and they needed to be delicate about it, but…

Taking in a sharp gulp of air, she felt herself tremble as she set her clothes down on the bed, then she looked over at Ben, finding him doing the same as he looked at her. They stayed there like that for a minute, both hesitant to turn or even to move, and in the end, neither changed direction. Both of them faced the other, breathing shuddering as they undid the ties of their robes with hands that shook almost violently as they let the fabric fall. 

She never broke eye contact with him the entire time, even as they both draped their dressing gowns over the bed, and he was left in only his trousers. The heat in his stare was enough to trap her own, capturing her in the depths of his eyes as he watched her shaky hand reach up for the strap of her nightgown. Her hand was trembling so badly she missed the strap several times, and he quickly took notice. His jaw opened and closed a few times before he finally decided he wanted to speak, and she struggled to form thoughts. “Let me,” he whispered, and so her hand fell from her shoulder, and she did just that.

Ben’s hands, of course, were shaking almost as badly as hers were. She felt his warm, thick fingers quiver as they ghosted over her skin, making her realize he really hadn’t ever touched her like this before. The amount of her bare skin that he’d had his hands on before was scant, and abysmally small, and she found that within seconds of starting to experience it, she was addicted to the feeling. As Ben slid the strap from her shoulder, she knew that one day, she wanted to have those hands of his everywhere she could possibly have them. 

For now, though, she’d settle for the gentle way he slid one strap down her shoulder, then moved behind her as he worked to remove the other. Confusion filled her as he disappeared from her line of sight, then she felt his lips ghosting over her ear. “Just tell me if this is too fast,” he whispered, then she felt his lips press gently to the skin of her neck, just beneath the short, wavy cut of her hair, causing her entire body to shiver as she gasped in his arms. “ _ Ben, _ ” she whispered, the singular word falling from her lips without even needing to think it. 

Another short little gasp escaped her as he pressed a kiss lower down on her neck, and his fingers began to slip down beneath the little strap holding the gown to her shoulder. He kissed her again just where the strap had been, his lips following it on its journey down until it fell with gravity down her arm. When he finished his work, Ben let her push the straps further down her arms until the gown fell past the bandeau bra she wore, and she let the whole thing crumple to the floor. 

Kicking it aside, Rey turned to face him, her hands coming up to rest delicately on his shoulders. Another shiver ran through her as she felt the hard planes of his muscles beneath her palms, and she felt it run through him as well as she let them skin further down onto his chest. Both of them were shaking slightly, and it felt like ages before Ben’s hands came up to grip her wrists, causing her to look up at him with confusion in her eyes. “Not yet,” he told her, his voice lower than it usually sounded. “We should take this slow.”

“You didn’t think so when you were kissing my neck,” she whispered, and he chuckled his response. “What’s so funny?”

“Because I’ve been thinking about kissing your neck for the better part of five hundred years.” A few seconds of quiet passed them by as he let go of her hands, and ran the tips of his fingers along the side of her throat, causing goosebumps to form on her arms. “And… it felt right.”

“What if putting my hands on you feels right?” she asked, then she placed her hands back where she’d left them, and watched his lower lip quiver as she leaned forward, and pressed her lips to his in a brief kiss. “And I’ve been thinking about it for centuries?”

“ _ Rey… _ ”

“What if I told you about the dream I had once? When we were in the tent in the Pennsylvania colony — I suppose it’s just Pennsylvania now — and we spent the night together?” She let her hands fall, wandering down until they grabbed hold of one of his, her thumb running over the fingers she’d fantasized about in sleep a century and a half ago. God, it had been so long since she’d been with anyone, it was almost impossible to recall the face of the last person she’d made love to. It was as if she and all the others before her had faded away into shadows, and there was only the man before her. Taking a moment to find her confidence, Rey looked up, and met his eyes. “What if I told you what these hands did to me?”

A sound that resembled a choked sob left his throat, then he tugged her forward, slid his hand into her hair, tilted her head back and sealed his lips over hers in a kiss that felt much more frenzied, needy, and rushed than the first. It was in this second kiss that she sensed the desperation and need he felt for her, that she finally realized just how badly he’d been wanting her as well all these years. 

_ God _ , how could she have been so blind? Ben’s kisses conveyed a whole world of emotions she hadn’t yet been privy to with anyone else. She’d loved many people before, but never let herself love deeply enough to properly open her heart to any of them. Perhaps the kiss itself wasn’t any better than the others at the physical level, because there were only so many ways a human being with a thousand year lifespan could experience a kiss, but the emotional one it was something else entirely. All those feelings they’d kept locked away from each other for centuries were being unleashed without either of them saying a word, and yet each brush of their lips spoke volumes. 

But her emotions weren’t the only thing being ignited like a stick of dynamite ready to explode. No, the kiss awakened something else inside of her, coiling deep within her gut and causing heat to pool between her legs in a way she hadn’t felt in so long, she’d almost forgotten what it felt like. The last time she’d been aroused had been in the tent she’d told him about seconds earlier, and she hadn’t even finished then. When was the last time she’d come? It had been far too long, but… as she kissed Ben, she knew he was right. They needed to take this slow. If they rushed too quickly into their very new, very raw relationship… they risked doing everything wrong, and she didn’t want to lose him because they had moved too fast. 

Still she let herself kiss him fiercely for another minute, wrapping her arms around his neck as he pulled her close against him. Another shudder of pleasure rushed through her as she felt his warm chest press against hers. Trying to keep her hands off of it was going to prove difficult, but… surely she was strong enough to try. 

Eventually Rey pulled back, nearly stumbling away from the kiss as she gasped for air. His arms were the only thing keeping her steady and making sure she was standing for a few seconds before she gripped his shoulders tightly, and looked up into his eyes. “We need to be getting dressed.”

“You’re right,” he replied, then he hummed as he rested his forehead against hers again. “I just… I was holding back for so long…”

“Me too,” she whispered, then she pulled back from him, and they untangled themselves from their embrace. “I spent so much time wondering what this would feel like and never acting…”

“I wouldn’t say never.” Ben had a smirk growing on his face as he spoke, “When you kissed me at Gettysburg, you weren’t just kissing me goodbye. I know that now.”

“Shut up,” she teased, then she gestured to the clothes they’d laid out on the bed. “Get dressed, we’ve got a long day ahead of us.”

*

The day was astonishingly short. It felt longer than it actually was for a time, simply because they’d done so much, but then it grew astoundingly short as the sun began to set. It was then that they finally arrived at a small little theater by the Hudson, and just as the sun finally descended beyond the western horizon, they sat down in their seats, waiting patiently for the lights to dim. 

Once the projection was illuminated on the screen, Ben let his hand fall on the arm rest between them, and as music swelled with the opening credits, she placed her palm in his. Smiles blossomed on their faces, their eyes drifting from the screen toward each other as their fingers laced together, and the movie began to pass them by without them noticing. 

Rey couldn’t remember what they saw by the time it was over; she was a little too drunk on him and the feelings she was newly allowed to express. Ben’s thumb running over her own the entire time proved a further distraction, and since there was no one sitting in the rows behind them, they spent the entire second act stealing kisses as if they were actually the youthful couple they appeared to be. 

Each time she kissed Ben it was like her entire body grew warm, but not necessarily from arousal. Kissing him made her think of lying in front of a warm fireplace at wherever she was calling home for the decade. It felt like she could hear the crackle of the flame over wood, like she could see the yellow and orange flames licking and flickering up into the bricks of the chimney, making her feel as if she were safe and at peace. 

And with him, she most certainly was. 

They spent the entire film learning how the other kissed, some of them soft and tender and others a bit more fierce and passionate. The latter had earned them several looks from movie goers who were curious as to just what the hell was causing all the ruckus behind them, and each time they’d broken away and all but sat on their hands whilst trying not to laugh as they pretended the had  _ not  _ just been kissing each other senseless. 

By the time it ended, Rey felt like she was floating. They stumbled out of the theater stone cold sober and utterly drunk at the same time as they laughed harder than they ever had together. Ben’s hand was still swallowing hers with its size as he led her out onto the street, and they both struggled to form a conversation over their snickering as he guided her away from the crowd that was leaving behind them. 

“Did you see their faces?” Rey asked as Ben guided her into a small, surprisingly well-kept alley. “I had forgotten how scandalized people could be from a simple kiss.”

“That wasn’t just one kiss, Rey,” Ben protested, then he turned them so that they were both leaning against a brick wall, listening to the sounds of the fading crowd in the background as they waited for them to leave. “I think they had good reason to be scandalized.”

She hummed as she reached for the black lapels of his coat, and tugged him roughly in front of her as she leaned back against the wall, then they both paused for a moment. Their breathing was slightly heavy as they regained their balance, and Ben put up a hand beside her hand, leaning against the wall and over her as his eyes wandered over her face. Rey blinked a few times as she struggled to find the words to say, then she settled for letting her hands slide up to rest on his shoulders, gripping them firmly as she met his gaze. “We’ve waited long enough.” She let one hand wander up to caress the base of his skull, then she tilted his neck so that his forehead rested against hers. “We earned this. We wasted so much time… I’ve earned the right to kiss you wherever and whenever I please. I deprived myself of it for too long.”

“I could’ve said something, too.”

Another laugh escaped her. “We’ve had this conversation already,” she reminded him, threading her fingers through his hair as she sighed contentedly.

“Then maybe we shouldn’t talk at all,” Ben replied, then she gasped slightly as she was pressed further into the wall, and kissed so thoroughly she was certain she wouldn’t be able to see straight for a week. 

Getting a hold of her mind, Rey hurriedly kissed him back, fisting his hair in her hand as she seized control of the kiss. A soft whimper sounded from his lips, then the kiss grew more intense, one of his legs wedging its way between hers as their bodies pressed tightly together. It was as if just being close to her wasn’t enough, every part of him had to be touching every part of her, and if she were being honest, she felt the same way. 

Every fiber in her being was screaming out for more, and she moaned as one of his arms wrapped around her waist, pulling her away from the wall as he lifted her up into his embrace, catching one of her thighs with his second arm as she wrapped them around his waist. The fringe of her dress made a loud trickling sound almost like that of a waterfall as she moved, then she was pressed to the wall again, her head tilted back as his lips continued to meet hers. 

In this new position, Rey could feel every single contour of his upper body as it pressed against hers, and she reveled in it. The kiss sent a rush of adrenaline through her system, making her feel more alive than she had in centuries as it continued the awakening they’d started in their bedroom earlier. For so many years, she’d kept that part of herself locked away. She’d barely even allowed herself the touch of her own hand she’d gotten so lost in her own loneliness and grief. Now, though, now she felt her baser urges roaring to life. Her arousal spiked in time with the affection she felt for him, and for the first time in far too long, she felt herself growing wet just from a kiss. 

Taking it slow was going to be difficult, she realized. 

“Ben,” she breathed, breaking away from the kiss to steal sweet oxygen, but he didn’t seem to need the same thing, and he began to press heated, open mouthed kisses to her neck. “I… I need you to touch me.” Her voice was a whisper, nearly lost on the light breeze blowing past them as she begged him to give her what her body was so desperately craving. 

Hearing this, he pulled away, and cupped her cheek with one hand, fingers wandering up into her hair. “Rey…” He was panting hard, words on his lips unspoken as his dark eyes locked on hers. 

Whatever he was going to say in response, whether he wanted to touch her or not, died before he could get the chance to speak it. In that moment, their world flipped upside down, and the happiness they’d only just found was snuffed out like a flame, when a familiar voice interrupted them with an innocent question of, “Ben?”

Their heads snapped in the direction of the voice, and Rey was stunned to see the man who had sold her the locket around her neck five years earlier standing before them, — though with a few more wrinkles at the corners of his eyes — shocked by the intimate position in which they were entangled. Quickly, she unwrapped herself from Ben, and stood on her own two feet just as a woman and a very small child rounded the corner, and joined the man — Kes Dameron if she recalled correctly — at his side. 

Ben’s face grew pale, and fear suddenly coursed through Rey’s veins. Nothing bad had happened yet, but already a malevolent feeling had settled into the pit of her stomach, making her feel as if suddenly, everything was about to change. “Kes,” he said casually. “It’s good to see you.”

The man standing before Ben was looking at him like he’d seen a ghost, and Rey knew exactly why. How long had Ben said he’d been in Charleston before she’d gotten there? How long had he known Kes without aging or changing something about his appearance?  _ Oh no.  _ “It’s… it’s good to see you, too old friend,” Kes said, then he and the woman stepped forward. “But what happened to you? Shara and I had heard you’d…” He gestured vaguely, attempting to convey the meaning of his sentence’s end without saying it, likely to avoid having to explain death to the little boy standing between himself and his wife. 

The boy’s presence confused Rey for a moment. The last time she’d met Kes, he’d mentioned a wife, but he’d had no son if she recalled. Looking at the child before her, though, she realized that he couldn’t have been older than four, but no younger than three years old. In the time since she’d last seen him in Charleston, they’d had a child, and something about the young boy’s existence made her suddenly, frighteningly aware of the passage of time. 

“No, I didn't,” Ben told Kes, interrupting Rey’s thoughts. “I made it out.” His haze turned to the boy who’d been puzzling Rey’s mind. “Who’s this?”

A smile broke out on Kes’s face, then he bent down, and ruffled the boy’s short, dark, wavy hair. “This is my son, Poe,” he told his friend. “He was born… about eight months after you left for the war.”

_ Four years old _ . Rey had been exactly right.

Ben managed a small, lighthearted chuckle as the boy wrapped his little arms around his father’s leg, and looked at him curiously from behind the fabric of his trousers. “Shy little one, isn’t he?”

“Not usually,” Kes replied, still looking a bit like he’d seen a ghost. “Shara, would you take Poe inside? I’ll meet you in a minute.”

His wife gave a nod, then she bent down, and unlatched Poe’s arms from his father. “Come on, Poe,” she whispered, then she and the boy walked out away from the alley, and back toward the theater Rey and Ben has just left. 

Once she was gone, Kes laughed as he looked at Ben. “My god, man,” he muttered, shaking his head as he looked him up and down. “You stay alive this long and you don’t write? You don’t come back to tell me you survived?”

A nervous chuckle left Ben, and he scratched the back of his head rather awkwardly. “I spent a few years in Europe after the war,” he said casually — or at least, he attempted to, since Rey detected a slight tremor in his voice — then he cleared his throat. “I only returned this past year.”

Kes thought on this for a moment, then he nodded. “Ah, that sounds reasonable,” he replied, but before Ben or Rey could breathe their relief that they hadn’t been caught, he pointed to Ben’s youthful face. “It’s strange, though, it’s been five years since I saw you last, and you don’t seem to have aged a day.”

_ No. No. No. No. No. No.  _

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Ben replied, voice still trying to maintain that air of nonchalance. “I’ve gotten older, same as you.” Oh, how they both wished that were true. 

Stepping forward, Kes looked him up and down, and shook his head. “No, not in the ten years I’ve known you. Not a single wrinkle nor gray hair to be seen. Your face looks exactly the same.” He stepped back, and laughed. “It’s remarkable, really. You don’t even bear the scars shared by so many of your fellow soldiers.”

“I got very lucky,” Ben replied, voice growing tense, then he shuddered. “Kes, listen, it’s been lovely seeing you, but I’m afraid Rey and I must be going.” He then took hold of Rey’s hand, and attempted to guide them both out of the alley, but was stopped by yet another comment from his friend. 

“I’ll have to figure out your secret, won’t I?” Kes asked, and Rey knew logically he wasn’t trying to sound so cryptic and threatening, but there was something on the edge of his voice that made her certain Ben was no longer safe in New York City. 

Ben froze, then he turned back to Kes, his voice barely disguising the lump she knew was in his throat as he said, “You will. But… how long will you be in New York, Kes? I can’t catch up with you if you’re leaving soon.”

“Ah, we’ve just relocated here. Charleston was causing… too many painful memories.” His gaze grew almost accusatory as he looked at Ben, seeming to be a little angry with him for what he’d done. The anger was understandable. Under any other circumstances, Kes would’ve been told his friend was still alive, but thanks to Ben’s unique lifespan, he had to let him think he’d died. He hadn’t counted on this, since most of the time when they’d relocated historically, the people from their past never strayed to find them again. 

Of course, that had been in a time before technology made it easier to cross hundreds of miles in a matter of days. It was no longer impossible to see the middle of the country on a whim, and that was about to make their immortal lives that much harder. Their ghosts now had the ability to catch up with them, and this was only the beginning. 

“I’m sorry,” Ben whispered quietly, then he stood up straighter. “But it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past now.”

“Indeed,” Kes replied, then he clapped his hands together. “Well, I should be going. My wife and son are expecting me.” 

“Of course, I wouldn’t want to keep you.”

“But, Ben?” 

“Yes?”

“You and your doll should visit us sometime,” he said, then another smile parted his lips. “I’d very much like for you and Poe to meet properly some day. I… I have a feeling you’ll get along.”

Ben gave his friend a nod. “I’d like that,” he replied, then he threaded his fingers through Rey’s. “But for now, we must go our separate ways.”  _ They must never see each other again, so long as Kes is alive. _

“Have a good evening, Ben,” Kes told his friend, then he gestured to the locket still surrounding Rey’s neck. “That looks lovely.” 

Rey nodded numbly as he finally made his way out of the alley, and toward his family. The distant sound of their son’s laughter sounded from the theater, and she winced as she looked up at Ben, watching sadness fill his eyes as they both realized what had to happen next. “You don’t have to leave,” she said, then she gripped his hand firmly in her own. “Ben, this is a big enough city. You can stay, you never have to speak to Kes again.”

“Rey, we both know if I stay I’ll keep seeing him again and again, and he will  _ really  _ start to notice I’m not aging.”

“No, no, no, he won’t, we can move to another part of town, we can—“

Ben shushed her by leaning down, and capturing her lips in a kiss. Though her head spun and her entire body felt like it was a live wire, Rey knew it was just a distraction. If she pleaded with him to stay any longer, she bet he would’ve done it, and logistically… they couldn’t stay —  _ he  _ couldn't stay — Kes had spotted him now, and if he continued to see that Ben wasn’t aging… they would be caught. 

So for a moment, Rey kissed him back, feeling tears well up in her eyes as she gripped him tightly enough she wondered if her fingers would leave a temporary bruise. Maybe if she held on enough, she could stop him from going. 

Eventually, though, Ben did pull away, and he looked down at her with sorrowful eyes as he reached up a hand, and opened the locket on her neck, staring at the picture of himself held inside. “We don’t have to separate,” he whispered, then his misty irises met hers. “You can come with me you know.”

She wanted to. God, more than anything she wanted to follow him to the mythic ends of the earth and never look back, but she had obligations. Running with Ben wasn’t an option as much as she desperately wished it was. “I can’t,” she breathed, blinking fat, wet tears from her eyes as she avoided his gaze. “Maz needs me here, I can’t leave her alone. I’m the only friend she has.”

“Rey…”

“And you know we’ll be easier to catch if there’s two of us,” she said before he could say anything else to try and persuade her to stay with him. “We need to lie low for a few years, and do nothing. We always see each other again against all odds.” Her hands found their way up to his cheeks, cupping them as she wiped away the tears that were now coming out of  _ his  _ eyes. “Ben, I’ll find you, I promise,” she said, then she pulled him down to her for a brief kiss. “I always do.”

“I need to leave tonight,” he replied, and she felt her heart sink further in her chest at the thought. “I’ll return with you to Maz’s and grab my things, then I’m boarding the first train out of the city. I don’t care where it’s going.”

“Tonight?” Her voice was shaking, and she was well aware of its shaking, but there was little she could do to stop it. All she wanted was for him to stay one more night, if she could hold him one last time before they separated for an unknown number of years, maybe she could say goodbye more easily. “Can’t you wait until morning?”

Another shake of his head. “Rey, if I don’t leave tonight — _ right now  _ — I’ll never be able to leave you again,” he said, his deep voice shaking her to her core as he took her hands in his, then gently pressed his lips to the sharp curve of her knuckles. “And if we want to ever have a chance at being together again, I need to go before Kes notices more things about me that haven’t changed.”

“I suppose you’re right,” she said with a sniffle.

“I don’t want to be,” he replied, then he kissed her forehead, and gestured to the outside of the little alley they’d walked into. “We should go, this is going to be hard enough without stalling.”

Taking in one last, shuddering breath, Rey whispered her assent, then the two of them walked out of the alley hand in hand, and made their way toward the house they’d called home for two months at a snail’s pace.

*

For the most part, they remained silent on their way in and out of Maz’s house. Wherever their roommate herself was remained a mystery, but Rey had bets that she was probably out avoiding the house thinking that she and Ben were using it for… nefarious purposes. That thought nearly made her laugh before making her want to cry as she realized they wouldn’t be getting to lie with one another for what could be centuries yet. Technology was getting more advanced and their separations shorter each time, but who knew what sort of things might’ve still stood in their way?

The quiet grew deafening as time went on, both of them lost in the grief of preparing to lose the other again. Ben was actually so lost, in fact, that Rey wondered if he’d noticed when she slipped the photo they’d taken together on New Year’s Day into his pocket. She had a feeling he didn’t, but he’d notice it eventually anyway. All she wanted was for him to have a piece of her the same way she had a piece of him, even if he couldn’t wear his photograph around his neck at all times. 

Once he packed all of his things into a single bag with the strap slung over his shoulder, they made their way to the train station to buy a ticket to the first train that would be leaving. Ben was going to be in Cincinnati by sunrise, and life had never felt more cruel. Grand Central terminal’s lights were shining brightly but the world felt like it was much darker as they stood at the side of the railroad, waiting for the train to Ohio they desperately didn’t want to come.

They held each other the entire time, Rey’s face buried in his chest in a way that allowed her to pretend she was anywhere else in the world, that  _ they  _ were anywhere but that blasted station. Tears threatened her eyes but failed to come, and for that she was grateful. Now that they were in public, crying was going to draw a lot more attention to them, and that was the last thing Ben needed right then. 

“It’s not fair,” he whispered, his breath warm as it breezed through her hair. “We just started… and now this…”

“I know,” she replied, then she lifted her face from his chest, and cupped his cheek with one hand. “But… we’ll get through this, I have to believe that. We always see each other, no matter how long it takes.”

“Yes, but… this may be the hardest it’s been yet.” Before he could say anything else, they heard the distant sound of a train horn going off, and felt the rumble beneath their feet as the thing that was going to finally take him away from her approached. “I wish we had more time.”

She found herself taken back to a willow tree outside of Atlanta, where they’d kissed for the first time. He’d said something similar to her back then, and it again struck her as odd that for two people who could never die, they didn’t ever seem to actually have time. “I do, too,” she said, then the train came into view, and she nearly sobbed as she watched it come closer and closer with every passing second. “But we can do this, we can, and the next time I see you, at least… at least we know we won’t waste any time.”

A small chuckle left him at that, then as the train finally blew past them, he wrapped his arms around her, pulling Rey into a warm, comforting embrace as the cold, metal monster of an engine roared past them. For those precious few seconds, all she could feel was Ben; the man she’d fought with and mortally wounded, the man who’d held her by the funeral pyre of his best friend and declared their feud over, whom she’d fallen for with over the course of several centuries after, whom she was finally, openly allowed to be in love with, and who would always come back to her no matter the circumstance. 

Peace surrounded her mind, and as she pulled back from their hug she was smiling. His gaze grew curious as the train slowly huffed to a stop, and sat waiting patiently for passengers to board. All around them, people began to get on board, but they stood still for a moment, existing outside of time for at least a little while as they took their time finishing their goodbyes.

Another silent conversation was shared between them, their rich, nine hundred year history allowing Rey to know exactly what he was thinking without him having to say it. As they finally began to part, his thumb rubbed gently over the curve of her back, getting wrapped up in the navy blue fringe of her dress while he searched for the words to say out loud. “I’ll see you soon,” he promised.

“You will,” she answered him, then she looked beyond Ben to the train. “But you’re going to miss your train if you don’t go now. You need to go so we have the  _ chance  _ to reunite later.”

“Have you always been this bossy?” 

“From the beginning,” she said honestly, then she pulled him in for one more, brief kiss. “Go. I’ll see you in a few years.”

Ben laughed bitterly as he pulled away from her, and she watched a single tear make its way down his cheek. “Just don’t let that become another century,” he told her as he finally stepped back, and walked up the steps into the train car. 

She watched him as he moved, waiting until he was seated by the window nearest to her before she approached him again, and knocked on the window. “You better open this.”

Sorrow filled his eyes as he opened the window, then he reached out a hand to her, and waited until she took it before he spoke again. “Rey, I need to tell you something before I go, ‘cause I don’t think I’ve said it yet, and you need to hear it.”

“What?” she asked, shaking her head in confusion. “What is it?”

He took a few deep breaths, his eyes closing for a few seconds before blinking open as he sighed contentedly. “Through all these years, you’ve been my constant,” he said, lacing his fingers through hers. “And you know this already, but what you don’t know and what I failed to tell you earlier is…  _ I love you _ … and I always will.”

A soft laugh escaped her as a tear fell from her eyes. “I know,” she replied, then she ran her thumb over his. “I’ll see you.”

“Goodbye, Rey,” he replied, then he leaned down out of the window, and brought his lips to hers ever so briefly just before the train began to move, and forced them to part. They both shared a teary eyed laugh as they clung more tightly to their hand hold, and the woman he loved began to walk in time with the train. “You’re going to have to let go sooner or later, you can’t out run a train.”

“Not for another minute.” She gave him a stupidly wide grin then, and left her fingers laced with his, holding onto him and walking alongside the train until the speed became too much for her to keep up with. Only then did she let him go, watching from a distance as Ben lingered out of the train’s open window, and waved to her from his seat. 

Her eyes stayed on his last known position long after the train had completely left the station, and only then, only when the last person had left the platform and she was all alone, did she allow the sons that had been threatening to burst forth from her throat free. Only then did she finally allow herself to break down against one of the beams keeping the building upright, and mourn the loss of another attempt at a life together. One day they’d get it right, they’d have to, but that day felt so far away even as it seemed to draw closer, and she was getting sick of it. 

Either way, though, she was going to see him again. Whether or not the next time would be the last time they came together, she had no idea, but of one thing she was certain — forever was still waiting for them, and time belonged to her and Ben. It could take an eternity, but one day soon, she knew, they would come together and never ever fall apart. 


	22. Chicago, 1931 CE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 19no

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot to mention this before posting, but there is a very brief mention of infertility in this chapter, it’s super short but I didn’t want that to come out of left field for anyone.

Living on the streets proved to Ben that there were worse smells than death. After the crash of 1929, he’d found himself in dire financial straits, and he didn’t have the energy to try and maneuver his way out of it like he had before. By the end of 1930, he’d wound up in a Hooverville in Chicago, and by mid-January of 1931, he was freezing to death every night looking out over Lake Michigan. 

But life had stopped being kind to him long before the United States entered the Depression. 

It had ceased to bring him any kind of joy since he’d left New York City nearly ten years prior. The rest of the world had been a party, all glitz and glamor and shining lights, but Ben had sat in the backs of speakeasies and the corners of rooms and spent the decade in a drunken haze. Most of the twenties weren’t worth remembering to him anyway, and since he and Rey had given up on trusting the mail system, it was only made worse by the fact that after some time, he became certain he couldn’t reach her. 

So he spent the decade hopping from city to city in the Midwest. He lived in Cincinnati for a few years before leaving for Cleveland, and from Cleveland he hopped to Indianapolis, then from Indianapolis to Chicago. The last stop on his journey had been right when the stock market had crashed, and from there he used his cash sparingly, but eventually, he ran out. Thus he was forced into a Hooverville, and when he grew quickly tired of living there, he became crafty with how he hid throughout the city. 

By the night of January 26th, 1931, Ben’s fingers were going numb nightly and he was certain he smelled worse than the common sewer rat. His breath fogged the air of the little alley he called home as he bit into the first meal he’d had in weeks. Being unable to die meant he had to eat less often, but Ben still utterly hated the feeling in his gut that accompanied the hunger he felt. 

That was the reason why he was delving into the remains of a steak that had been rejected by a nearby restaurant. Why it had been thrown out, he had no idea, and he didn’t care. If it was undercooked or held some sort of fatal flaw, he wouldn’t be affected by it. 

A cold breeze blew by as he finished his meal, causing shivers to run through his body as he tightened up into a ball, and braced himself against the chill. Swears escaped his frozen lips as he kept his hands pressed up against them, attempting to use his hot breath as a way of finding some sort of warmth. 

_ God _ , he was cold, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt a cold like this. Not even when he was living in Europe just over ten years ago had he experienced such frigid conditions. Chicago’s winter was cruel and unforgiving, and he wondered how many mortals in his same condition had perished under its hand. How many people had died because they didn’t have the same ability that he had? 

The question boggled his mind constantly, and more so when people would walk past his alley, whispering and chattering like nothing was wrong. To them, the people in the Hoovervilles didn’t exist. Once someone slipped and fell from grace, they were effectively dead to their more fortunate friends. That was probably why no one noticed Ben in the alley, or at least, they didn’t until he took one last bite of his food and swallowed it funny. 

What resulted from his inability to eat his own food was a loud, ill-sounding cough that seemed to tear apart his lungs as he forced the meat from his windpipe. While he was still choking, someone finally noticed that he was faring poorly, and he was suddenly being interrogated by a feminine voice. “Sir? Are you all right?” His eyes were clamped shut from coughing, and he couldn’t see the source of the question, but  _ god  _ she sounded familiar. Maybe when he finally stopped choking, he’d be able to place it. 

Eventually, the last bite of steak ejected itself rather disgustingly onto the pavement, and he curled back up into his little ball against the side of the alley, not bothering to catch the source of the voice as it spoke. Whoever she was, she’d forget him in five minutes anyway. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I could call an ambulance if you need,” she replied, her familiar voice so sincere as a blurry hand pointed away from the alley.  _ If only she’d come into focus… _

“Go away,” he growled, looking into her eyes as his vision finally began to unblur. 

A soft little gasp sounded from her throat, and just when he started to wonder if he’d somehow caused her offense, she knelt down in front of him, and finally came into focus. “Ben?” Rey asked softly, then his jaw fell open, and he uncurled from his fetal position as he stared at her. 

“Rey.” Without another word, he launched himself at her, not giving a damn what he smelled or looked like as his arms wrapped around her waist, and pulled her close. She didn’t smell perfect either if he were being honest—she smelled suspiciously like a soup kitchen, but  _ fuck _ he didn’t care—but she seemed to be as worried about such things as he was. Nothing else mattered to them at the moment but the simple fact that they had each other. She was in his arms again, and no one was going to interrupt them this time. There was no Kes, no war, and no awkwardness between them that could ever lead the two to part. 

This time was real, and it was permanent, of that much he was certain. 

Ben pulled back from their embrace, then he took a moment to simply admire her. Rey’s hair was longer, duller, and her overall complexion held less color to it than when he’d seen her last — though that was more likely due to the season than the sorrow caused by their parting — and she wore less makeup than she had in the twenties. All she wore now was a bit of rouge to her cheeks and visible hints of mascara in her eyelashes. The lipstick and powder seemed to have vanished with the rest of the decadence that had once run America. “You’re so beautiful,” he breathed, taking her face in his hands as he admired it, and allowed the fingers of one of them to run through the waves of her hair. “ _ God _ , I've missed you.”

A sad smile crossed her face, and he caught sight of tears brimming in her eyes as she placed her hands on his chest, fisting them into the fabric of his thick coat. “Where the hell have you been?” 

“Around, I’ve been city hopping for the last decade.”

“You should’ve stayed right where you were,” she said, laughing bitterly as she blinked tears from her eyes, and shook her head at him. “Ben, Maz and I came looking for you just two years later. We…” She swallowed back a sob he could tell was threatening to burst forth from her throat. “We couldn’t find you, but she saw how miserable I was, so we hopped cities, too.”

“Wait, does she—?”

“Maz knows,” Rey told him, then she cleared her throat. “I knew I could trust her, I always have, it’s not like it was with Kes.”

“Is she with you now?”

“She’s living in the House next door, has been as long as we’ve been moving in case I found you, and now…” Rey shook her head delightedly. “Now I have.” Her voice broke on that last word, and Ben felt a sob of his own break loose as he looked at her. 

Hot, wet tears burst forth onto his cheeks, and he let out a pained sound that vaguely resembled her name before he pulled her forward, and suddenly he was kissing her. Rey’s initial response was a shocked noise into the kiss, but then she melted into it, and his heart had never felt so full as he let his hands tangle themselves in her hair, and kissed her properly. 

The universe had finally stopped being cruel to him. After all those years, they’d finally come together at a time where they both knew they loved each other, and both wanted to live a life together. This was it for both of them. No other person, place, or time was right but this one, and as she pulled back from their latest kiss in the alley, Ben already found himself looking forward to the next one. 

“Where are you g-going?” he asked, feeling his teeth chatter as the cold returned to him upon her retreat. 

She gave him a small laugh as she stood to her full height, then offered him her hand. “Ben, I’m delighted to see you. Truly, I am,” she said, then he took her hand, and allowed her to help him to his feet. He only paused briefly to grab the one bag of his things he always carried around, then his attention was back on her as she beamed at him. “But you smell like a pig pen, and as much as I care for you; it’s rather difficult to ignore.”

“... _ oh. _ ”

A blush crept up his cheeks as she laughed at him, then she guided them from the alley, and out onto the equally dirty streets of Chicago. “We need to get you into a bath, mister,” she joked, patting him on the shoulder as they walked, then she shook her head, sighing as she looked at him. “Ben, what happened to you? I know how the rest of the country has fared with the economic crisis, but… you and I have always worked our way around such things.”

He gave her a nod, then exhaled slowly. “Rey, after I left you, I fell into a sort of pit. All I could feel was endlessly empty, and by the time the crash hit, I was at my worst,” he admitted, unable to hold her eye as they walked under the lights of streetlamps. “I held onto my funds for as long as I could, but when they ran out… I simply made no effort to replenish them.”

“Ben…”

“I lived in a Hooverville for a while, then decided there were too many people, so I’ve been on the street for the past several weeks,” he continued, then he finally met her gaze. “But that’s in the past, it doesn’t matter now.”

Rey looked as if she wanted to protest, but didn’t as she led them onto another street lined with houses. Wherever she lived these days, he suspected they were getting close. “I suppose you’re right. We found each other again, and… all that matters now is getting you cleaned up and out of those clothes.”

Hearing that last sentence caused his breath to hitch, and soon after, hers did the same as she realized the double meaning of it. A nervous chuckle escaped him as he found his eyes downcast. “That’s quite forward of you.”

A similar sounding laugh sounded from her lips as she also looked away. “Quite, but I’m afraid that wasn’t my intention,” she replied. “I only meant that you needed clean clothing, not that I intend to…” She gestured vaguely, and suddenly his laughter was no longer anxious. 

“Are you implying you have no interest in removing my clothes anymore, Rey?” He asked rather impishly. 

The palm of her free hand was very quick to come up, and smack him in the chest as they both fought back laughter. “You know what I meant!”

“Do I?” he asked, feeling brazen from the giddiness of being with her again combined with the chill he felt from the cold. “Or should you remind me one more time?”

He watched as a pink flush came over her features, but before she could formulate a clever response, a stray snowflake fell on her nose, and she gasped from the shock. “We— we really must get you inside,” she muttered, then she rubbed a hand on one of his frozen arms. “I think it’s supposed to storm tonight.”

Laughter burst forth through chattering teeth, and he glanced up at the sky as his body shivered violently to keep warm. “And—and w-where’d you hear that? D-do you kn-know someone who reads barometers?”

“No, just—just someone at the kitchen told me,” she replied, then she turned them toward a small little house lit by a small porch light. “So it’s a good thing we’re here.”

Ben looked up at the house, committing it to memory even though he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he’d be spending quite a lot of time in it. Simple red bricks lined both floors of the home, and though the inside was currently shrouded in darkness, he knew it would bring them nothing but the opposite. 

The woman beside him, though, was in a bit more of a hurry than he was, and she ushered him inside before he could get a good view of it. Instantly he was surrounded by warm, dry air. His shivering body was quick to acclimate, and for the first time since she’d found him, Rey let him go, making her way toward a nearby lightswitch, and flooding the house with light. For the first time in far too long, Ben saw couches and wood tables over a thick, red carpet that encompassed nearly the entire floor. A fireplace sat at the far side over the room, with a radio sat on a table at one side, and firewood gathered into a pile on the other. 

Rey pointed hurriedly to the large, brown sofa that rested against the nearest wall. “Take a seat, I’ll start the fire,” she told him, then she made to do just that as he walked into the room, and examined the furnishings a second time. She began to put the wood into the fireplace, grunting lightly as she did so, then she looked back at him as a hand reached back for a thing of matches. “And—and maybe we can have tea, or whatever warms you up fastest.”

“I’ll be fine, but thank you,” Ben replied as he sat down, already feeling warmed from just being out of Chicago’s winds. She looked at him oddly, seeming to ponder this for a moment before she realized, and they both shared a silent nod as they came to the same conclusion. “My body’s already recovered.”

The match struck the box, a flame sparking to life at its head before Rey knelt down, and held it gently to the firewood. “Quite right.” She then waited for the wood to ignite, and when it did, she stood slowly, watching the flames flicker in the fireplace for a few seconds before she turned her eyes on him. 

Ben’s breath caught in his throat as her eyes locked on his, and suddenly he could see a whole world of emotions floating within them. The energy of the room had shifted, and suddenly the room felt crowded in spite of them being the only two people in it. He felt his heart thudding like a drum, becoming the only sound he could hear for a few seconds as he watched her take a few cautious steps toward him, then she stopped. “What is it?” he asked, looking at her curiously. “Why are you staring at me like that?”

Blinking herself from her stupor, Rey shuddered, then jolted into movement. “I—I need to get you new clothes,” she said in a rush, then she began to walk off into another room, continuing to speak as she disappeared from view. “And— and draw you a bath. I’ll be right back, don’t go anywhere!”

“Wasn’t planning to!” He shouted after her, feeling as if his chest was no longer being compressed by outside forces as she retreated from the room, though not by much. The sound of her shuffling footsteps filled the house, and made his heart race even more at the thought of her walking around up there with the intention of drawing a bath for him. Something about it all filled the air with a charged energy, and he knew she’d felt it too, he’d seen it in her eyes. His mind was filled with visions of her — of  _ them  _ — as they sat on the sofa he was currently occupying with their hands covering one another’s bodies, lips locked in a way that said they had no intention of letting go, and bodies chest to chest as she sat on top of him, straddling his thighs as she grinded down on his—

_ Fuck.  _ He needed to get a grip on himself and his fucking erection. Rey was close, and even through the thick layers he was wearing, he had no doubt that it was visible. That would just be his luck, wouldn’t it?

Eventually, she came back downstairs with a familiar looking bundle of clothes in her hands. He recognized his old, flannel dressing gown from even a distance, as well as the gray pajama set he’d last worn in their home in New York, and marveled at how she’d managed to hold onto it for all those years. “You left in a hurry last time we saw each other,” she explained, setting the clothes down in his arms. “I have a few of your day clothes, too, but I don’t think you’ll be needing them tonight.” When Ben’s eyes widened at yet another double entendre, Rey gasped, and smacked his shoulder again, causing him to double over with laughter. “Ben Solo, you’re such an ass!”

“You love me anyway.” 

They both froze again at that, waiting a patient, but tense few seconds as they watched one another, then she nodded, smiling down at him. “Very much.” Then she leaned forward, and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “But I’ll love you more when you’re clean, so please go upstairs, open the second door on your right, and take a fucking bath.”

“What about the clothes I’m wearing?”

“Burn them in the fire when you’re done,” she replied, causing him to chuckle as he stood up, taking tight hold of the clothes already in his arms as he made his way out of the living room, and toward Rey’s bathroom. His heart was still beating like a drum the whole way up, and he had a feeling that it wasn’t going to stop anytime soon.

*

Warm — no, nearly  _ boiling hot  _ — water was a luxury Ben had missed in the last couple of years. Sure, he’d showered and taken the odd river bath or two, but he hadn’t had  _ this _ in ages. The tub, like most of its kind, was too small for his broad frame, but he enjoyed it regardless. It felt so, so good to sink beneath the water, holding his breath for an indeterminate amount of time as he washed the grime from his hair, then just sat there beneath the surface floating almost in limbo. 

For a while, he stayed like that, keeping his eyes open as he watched the blurry surface of the water move and dance in his vision. The world was lost to him again. Not one second of his long lifespan crossed his mind, not even his pleasant memories of Rey or anyone else he’d ever cared for platonically or romantically. Everything was gone. There was just the water, and  _ god,  _ he hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed this. 

Ben closed his eyes, drifting mindlessly in the warmth for one more moment before he finally decided he wanted to taste air again, then he sat up, and took in a slow, satisfying breath. Oxygen felt good in his lungs. It wasn’t required, but it was a nice luxury, and it slowed his heart rate significantly as he took in more and more of it. 

Distantly, he could hear Rey moving around in her kitchen, appliances banging against one another as she made tea over the stove he supposed he would now be able to call theirs. The thought of her standing there, simply pouring the hot liquid into cups send a smile parting his lips, and he was more grateful than ever that she knew of his feelings for her, because he was more gone than ever in said emotions. If she didn’t know about them before that day, he wouldn’t have known what to do with himself. He’d gotten lucky, so lucky that she’d found the courage to say something first, and he would continue to bless the universe for that until he finally met his end. 

Muttering quietly to himself about how much of a fool he was, Ben stood up from the tub, and reached out for the towel she’d left hanging nearby. He dried himself quickly, then reached for the clothes she left for him as he stepped out of the water. His breathing grew quick again as he dressed, then dried off his hair as he looked in the mirror. The waves in his dark locks were still damp, but held their volume as he stared at his reflection for the first time in months. 

He looked less rough than he’d expected, but he also had just bathed, so it was possible he results of his month’s long excursion on the street had been skewed. Either way, he didn’t care, he looked presentable enough to go out there and enjoy that cup of tea with his…  _ partner?  _ Was that what she was to him now? His partner? God, he had no idea, but hopefully when he went down there, they’d finally have the chance to figure it out. 

Shaking his nerves out, Ben moved to leave the bathroom, nearly tripping awkwardly over a small little trash bin on his way out as he rushed to get to Rey. He was an absolute mess, but by the time he reached the living room to find her in her night clothes, pouring tea into cups as she sat on the floor in front of the sofa, he managed to pull himself together enough to look presentable. She gave him a kind smile as he walked in, and he felt her eyes on him as he sat down beside her, and leaned back against the edge of the sofa as he glanced at her. 

“You look nervous, Ben,” she observed, then she handed him one of the cups. “Something on your mind?”

“No, just—just…” The words fell from his mind, and he took a sip of his tea to distract himself for a moment. “We’re here now. We’re finally here.”

“What’s that mean?”

“No interruptions, no wars, no Kes…” His voice trailed off, and he reached over with his free hand to caress her cheek. “Just us. Just time.”

Rey took a sip of her tea, then she shifted so that she was leaning against his arm, her legs folded comfortably at her side as they sat watching the fire burn. Peace covered them both like an extra layer of warmth, and Ben swore he had never felt more content than he did that night. Maybe he’d thought that about other moments in the past, but they were all eclipsed by this one. This was the one that was quickly becoming his favorite; the moment where he and Rey finally had  _ time  _ on their hands. 

“What do people do with time?” she asked suddenly, nearly making him jolt as he sipped more of his tea. “I spent so many years wondering what we’d ever do if we got the chance to properly be together, and now that we can… I don’t know what to do.”

Ben set down his tea cup on the table by the sofa, and then wrapped his arm around her shoulders, completely unaware that the little cup was about to be forgotten. She adjusted herself in his arms, setting her own cup by her side before she wrapped her arm around his waist, and used his chest as if it were a pillow. 

The cold of the city outside was suddenly forgotten. Though he’d been in it just two hours ago, Ben couldn’t conjure the feeling of shivering and shaking into the night to memory. He was starting to think Rey must’ve had some sort of other magic than immortality if she had such an effect on him. Or was it possible that this was what love actually felt like when he wasn’t also focused on the ticking of the clock? He was starting to think he was right as they sank into each other, eyes closing as they basked in the glory of being in each other’s arms. 

In the background, the fire crackled and roared violently, but created perfect serenity over the two people it was keeping warm. Ben’s endlessly beating heart was outrunning the speed of light in his chest as he felt hers pounding beneath the skin of her chest, pulse vibrating through his fingertips where they rested. His breath caught in his throat, and in that moment, he realized something important. They had all the time in the world, and they could do anything, which meant they could do things they hadn’t allowed themselves to before, which meant…

“Your heart’s beating really fast,” she said, nearly panting the words. Her head tilted up then, and she met his gaze. “I know you’re thinking something, and normally I can tell what it is just by looking in your eyes, but right now… I can’t quite grasp it.”

Summoning the courage to tell her what occupied his mind, Ben shifted so that he could see her better, and cupped her jaw with his free hand. “Having time means… we have a whole world of things to do, to explore, to discover together, and—and for the longest time I held back saying and doing so much because I feared you’d be gone the next day.” His hand shifted back, fingers lazily stroking the waves in her hair, still styled the way all modern women did it. He began to wonder if in a few minutes, it would still look quite so nice. “But that’s not a problem anymore, and…”  _ Deep breath _ . “And I love you, more than I’ve ever loved anyone before.”

“Ben, what are you saying?” Rey asked him, voice so soft and tender he swore it was a whisper. “Because I love you in the same way, and you’ve only just begun, but I  _ think _ I can decipher your meaning. I  _ know  _ I want the same thing.”

“You-you’re sure?” His eyes looked wildly between hers, searching for any sign she didn’t one hundred percent mean what she’d said, and finding none. She meant every word, and his brain didn’t know how to process that realization. “You-you want this? With me?”

“I don’t want anyone else, I’m never going to,” she told him, then she laughed as she leaned into the palm that was now resting on her cheek. “Ben, I told you in 1922, it’s been centuries since I’ve so much as looked at another person. I’m…” Another laugh, then before she could say anything else, he leaned forward, and kissed her again. 

Kissing Rey whilst clean, warm, and cozy by a fire was infinitely better than kissing her in the frigid, Chicago temperatures. It allowed him to focus on the kiss more, to properly show her everything he was thinking and feeling, to communicate how much he’d missed her over the last nine years since they’d parted. The memory of their last kiss through a train window crossed his mind, and he recalled the tears he’d shed when the train had gone into the tunnel and she’d disappeared from view. He’d spent most of the ride to Cincinnati silently crying at how unfair it all was, but that was in the past now. 

The future was bright enough to rid the darkness of that memory to some far off corner of his brain, and he smiled into the kiss as he let go of her hair to wrap an arm around her waist, and pull her onto his lap. Rey adjusted quickly, shifting in his arms so that her legs rested on either side of his, and she was straddling him properly. He could feel his pulse almost everywhere it was so fast, but he ignored it in favor of wrapping his arms around her waist, and kissing the air out of her lungs for another minute. 

After a while, Rey pulled back, and took his face in her hands before resting her forehead against his. “I was serious when I said it’s been centuries for me,” she replied. “I don’t think I’ve been with anyone since we were in Paris.”

He shook his head, letting his hands drift up to her shoulders, fingers finding their way beneath the fabric of her dressing gown as he searched for the perfect response. “I haven’t either,” he replied, then he leaned forward, and kissed her briefly. “Definitely not since Paris, but I’m not worried.”

“You’re not?”

“No… I’m with you, and I think  _ this,  _ like some other things we’ve done, we’ll have to relearn together,” he said, then he heard her breath shudder as he began to slide the silky, silver fabric from her shoulders. “Just tell me if you want me to stop.”

A sharp exhale, then she nodded as she pulled back from their embrace, and he could see mist clouding her eyes. A similar feeling began to prickle at his own, and he became very, very aware of the emotional weight of what they were about to do. It’s intensity had settled into his gut already, and he’d only just started removing her clothing. In all their years together, he’d thought about such a thing happening, but never dreamt it could become a reality. He’d never thought that he’d ever get to hold her like this. Sure, they’d shared a bed and cuddled beneath the sheets more times than either could count, but this was different. What they’d started in front of her fireplace was a promise, a beginning, and it was going to be the one memory he would always hold onto even when he was at his worst and most desperate hour. 

This he knew just from looking at her alone. 

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered, guiding the sleeves of her dressing gown off of her shoulders until they fell limply to her elbows. 

The fire crackled loudly in the background for another moment or two before Rey’s shaky hands reached up for the tie keeping the gown in place over her midsection, and she slowly undid the silk knot. “I’m not,” she promised him, then she let the gown fall apart, and shifted back to remove it entirely. She discarded the silk so casually on the floor beside them, he almost thought she wasn’t nervous at all, but then those hands reached for the tie of  _ his  _ dressing gown, and they were still shaking so badly they could barely perform their task. 

Eventually, Ben gave her a kind smile, and placed his hands over hers, stopping them in the midst of untying the knot. “Let me,” he whispered, and she did, moving her hands back as he leaned forward, and caught her in another kiss. Distracted by the gentle press of his lips to hers, Rey seemed to relax, barely noticing as he undid the knot. She almost seemed lost in the feeling of kissing him until he pulled back to tell her she could remove the rest of the gown with a little smirk on his face. As a result, she smacked his shoulder with the sleeve when she finished her work, then she tossed the flannel dressing gown aside before she resumed kissing him. 

It was then that Rey’s fingers steadied just enough to where she was able to grip the buttons of his shirt gently between two fingers, and he felt her begin sliding the buttons through the little loops in the silky fabric. He felt himself begin to shiver — though not from cold — as she moved, undoing the buttons of his shirt one by one until the air of the room cooled the skin over his abdominal muscles, and goosebumps developed on his chest and arms. “Rey,” he breathed, pulling away from the kiss just long enough to say her name. 

She didn’t say anything out loud, but her eyes told him everything she was thinking. Like him, she was undeniably nervous, and shaking just as badly as he was. It had really been so long since the last time either of them were intimate, but up until that moment, it hadn’t felt right. 

Now it did, and Ben’s hands drifted down to rest on her thighs as he recalled all the things that led him to this moment.  _ No matter what we do, where we move, where we go, we keep running into each other,  _ ran through his mind, and when he’d first said it they’d still been enemies. It had never been more true than it was that night as his fingers drifted beneath the fabric of her nightgown, and pushed it up her thighs. They always ran into each other. Rey was his constant, his destiny, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Rey’s fingers were vibrating as she reached down to help him with the pesky garment, but they were more useful than his, he realized as they aided his hands in removing her nightgown, throwing it over her head and toward the pile of clothes they were growing on the floor. His jaw fell slack as he saw her like that for the first time. Sure, she was still in her undergarments, but he’d only ever seen her exposed like this when he’d caught her bathing in the river a century and a half earlier. Neither of them had been expecting it then, but both of them were ready now, and excitement buzzed through his veins as he looked at her. “Beautiful,” he whispered, then he leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to the round edge of her shoulder. 

A tiny laugh escaped her, and he felt her hands wandering down the expanse of his chest, goosebumps forming on his skin as her fingertips wandered over it. He was utterly entranced by her, captivated by the way she touched him as her hands went lower and lower until they found the button of his trousers. His mouth went dry, heart pounding harder than ever in his chest as she undid the button, and began to work the fabric down his hips. “God, it’s been forever since I’ve done this,” she breathed, and he could tell she was getting nervous. “I—I…”

“Shh,” he whispered, taking her hands in his, and holding them up to his lips. Ben kissed her fingers again, then he leaned forward, and brought his lips to hers. 

Rey’s anxiety seemed to disappear into the kiss, and he ran a hand gently through her hair as his other arm wrapped around her waist, pulling her flush against him. The goosebumps and shaking gave way to warmth and serenity, and only when Ben was certain she wasn’t nervous anymore did he finally pull away, and look into her eyes. “Whatever happens tonight, I’m with you,” he told her, finding his voice inexplicably shook with every word, and tears were threatening to burst forth from his eyes. “I promise you, however this goes, it’ll be perfect, all right? Absolutely perfect.”

“You’re sure?” she asked him quietly, then her hands were resting on his chest. “Ben—“

He kissed her again, letting go of the grip he had in her hair to resume what she’d started with his trousers. Rey hummed against his lips, kissing him until they broke away to discard more fabric to their pile on the side, then his lips were back on hers, and he wrapped both arms around her waist, muscles flexing as they held her tightly against him. Without breaking the kiss, Ben managed to shift their positions so that she was resting on the floor, and he was on top of her as their lips parted and came together rhythmically. 

The firelight continued flickering in his vision even though his eyes were closed, but the shadows that danced in his eyes were ignored completely as Rey’s palms spread out on his back, pulling him close to her again as they kissed. God, it was still so incredible to him that they’d wound up here. Once upon a time, they’d tried to kill each other, and now the woman beneath him was the most wonderful part of his life. She was everything to him, and as one of his hands drifted down her side, he found himself grateful for every second of the last one thousand years. All that pain, all that misery, and it led him here to this moment. 

The realization of this overwhelmed him, and he felt tears prickle at his eyes, but he held them back as his fingers found the waistband of the underskirt she was wearing. They’d only just begun, there was no use in tears just yet. Once he started letting them fall, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stop, and so he kept his eyes shut for a few seconds as he pulled back from Rey’s lips, and began to press kisses down the line of her jaw onto her neck. 

“What are you doing?” Rey whispered to him as his kisses trailed down onto her collarbone , and only then did he allow his eyes to open and look up into hers. 

“Getting rid of this,” he replied, continuing his descent as he pulled the skirt — and the pants beneath — down her hips, which she helpfully lifted to enable him to move them down over the swell of her ass. “And you said you hadn’t come in centuries… I figured I could remedy that.”

“But what about you?” She gasped as he began to kiss the swell of one of her breasts, her whole body shivering as he pressed a kiss over her nipple. “You haven’t come in centuries either.”

Ben laughed as he began pressing kisses over the taut muscles of her stomach. “We can worry about me later. Right now, you’re my only concern,” he told her, then he pressed another kiss a little further down. “If you’re alright with this.”

She gave him an eager nod. “Yes, I’m more than alright with it,” she assured him as he pressed one last kiss above her hip bone, then he pulled back. 

He felt her stare burning a hole into his skull with its intensity as he crawled off of her, and continued sliding her remaining clothing — save for her brassiere — down her legs. His breath caught when he finally caught a glimpse at the apex of her thighs, but he forced himself to focus until she kicked off the offending fabric a few seconds later. Only then did he allow his eyes to linger, and his whole body must’ve flushed pink as he gazed upon her mostly naked form. It had been ages since he’d seen a woman like this, but the effect was still the same — perhaps more intense, even, given his feelings for her — his whole body felt like a live wire and his mind was a nervous but excited mess of thought. 

Both of them were nervous then, Ben could sense her nerves radiating from her body in waves, but before he could think to ask her one more time if she was sure, Rey gave him a nod. Giving a sharp exhale, he then positioned himself between her legs, finding he was trembling slightly as she rested one over his shoulder, and brought him closer to her entrance.  _ God _ , he didn’t deserve her. How lucky had he gotten to have someone like her as his eternal companion? He’d be counting his blessings every day they were together, he knew that much. 

Gathering his wits, Ben leaned to the side, pressing feather light kisses along the inside of her right thigh. He whispered sweet nothings between each one, listening to the hypnotic sound of Rey’s breathing as it grew faster the closer he got to where he knew she needed him most. 

The air around them felt like it was building static electricity, as if even it felt the sense of anticipation rushing through the two people on the floor, and the fire’s quiet crackle seemed to intensify with every passing moment as he switched to her other thigh. As he kissed her there, he glanced up ever so briefly to see Rey watching him with held breath. A small little smirk crossed his features as he gripped her thighs in his hands, fingers pressing into her shockingly tan skin, then he pressed an open mouthed kiss to her cunt, swirling his tongue around her clit as she inhaled sharply beneath him. 

“ _ God, Ben, _ ” she breathed, gasping into his touch as she let a hand drift into his hair, fisting his dark waves between her fingers. “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.”

He almost laughed against her skin, but instead focused on letting his tongue stroke her the way he knew she’d longed for him to do for centuries. As she struggled not to writhe beneath him, Ben licked a stripe up from her entrance to her clit, then repeated the motion a few times as her hands fisted more tightly in his hair. It almost hurt, but he was too distracted with tasting her to care. Rey tasted rather wonderful in his opinion, and he could feel her growing wetter by the second as he continued his ministrations. 

Before they’d started this, he was nervous about how he’d perform after centuries of remaining celibate. If Rey’s reaction to it was anything to go by, though, he was doing rather well. Not a second went by where she wasn’t making some kind of noise. She was swearing almost constantly, little whispers of, “ _ fuck, fuck, fuck,”  _ leaving her lips every time he took her clit into his mouth and sucked. That on top of her little moans and gasps of pleasure was perhaps the sexiest sound he’d ever heard, and he felt his cock become achingly hard in response. 

“Ben, Christ, you’re good at this,” she breathed, interrupting his thoughts as she propped her head up on her free arm, and watched him, seeming almost mesmerized as he ate her out with enthusiasm. “ _ Fuck, _ go faster…”

Ben smiled against her as he removed a hand from one of her thighs, and allowed a finger to skim over her entrance as he removed his mouth. He pressed his finger gently inside of her as he watched her breath hitch again in response, then he laughed, and resumed stroking her with his tongue as well. All the while he gently began to pump his single finger in and out of her, adding a second a moment later as he continued sucking her clit with a vigor that had her muttering incoherently beneath him. 

Soft little whimpers and moans left her lips as he looked up, watching as he brought her closer to her climax. He picked up the pace with his fingers, occasionally trading them out for his tongue again as he licked at her cunt, giving her everything he had as she moaned his name. “ _ Ben,  _ Ben I’m gonna—“ Her breath caught in her throat again. “I’m gonna come.”

“ _ Then come, _ ” he whispered against her clit, slipping his fingers back inside of her as he met her gaze. “Come for me, Rey.”

Her entire body shuddered beneath him, and he felt her come undone around his fingers, making them more wet than they already were as he continued his actions through her orgasm. Rey shouted his name loud enough for all of Chicago to hear it, filling him with a sense of pride that he’d been able to have such an effect on her as he continued, causing another coat of wetness to dampen his fingers as she cried out unintelligibly on top of him. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” she breathed as she came down from her high, and Ben slowly brought his fingers to a halt, releasing her clit from his lips as he stared at her, taking in the sight of Rey in the aftermath. She was flushed pink from cheek to chest, and the color even covered her abdominal muscles beneath a thin sheen of sweat. Her chest heaved from how hard she was breathing, and  _ fuck _ , no one had ever looked at him the way she did. 

Ben was trembling, barely keeping himself together as he crawled back over her, watching the firelight flickering over her face as she wrapped her arms around his neck, and pulled him close. “You’re…” he started, but he didn’t know how to continue his sentence, too lost in the memories of the sounds she’d made to think of words. 

“Are you quite certain you haven’t done that in centuries?” she asked him, causing them both to erupt into laughter even as they struggled to fill their lungs with oxygen. 

A shaky exhale left his lips as he rested his forehead against hers. “If I did, after you, I don’t think I’d remember,” he told her, then she laughed again, the sound musical to his ears. “Rey, you’re extraordinary, and not just like this, not just here… from the moment I met you, I had this feeling. It was deep, buried in the pit of my stomach, but I think I know why I can’t figure out when I fell in love with you.”

“Why?” she asked softly, voice shaking as he watched tears form in her eyes. “Why don’t you know?”

“I think a part of me, even when I hated you, knew from almost the moment we met that you were my destiny.” He reached forward, letting a hand bury itself in her hair as he gently stroked her brunette waves. “Rey, you and I have always had strong feelings for each other, I just fought for the wrong army.”

Her breathing grew short again, but she said nothing, opting to kiss him senseless instead in the aftermath of his confession. Ben quickly lost himself to the feeling, wondering if she could taste herself on his tongue as she parted her lips to allow him access. He nearly gasped into the kiss as Rey wrapped her legs around him, grinding against his erection as she resumed fisting her hands in his hair. 

If she kept doing that, he wasn’t going to last long, especially given how long it had been since he’d even enjoyed the touch of his own hand, but  _ hell, _ what she was doing made him feel  _ alive.  _ For another couple of minutes, he let them stay like that, kissing her as he began to grind against her in return, both of them letting out moans as they kissed, and he began leading them both into a shared climax. 

“Wait,” she whispered, pulling away abruptly, and he felt as though he’d been day dreaming then forcefully tugged back into reality by the pause. “I—I want you inside me.” Her breath was coming hard, color flooding her cheeks as oxygen was finally allowed to reach her brain. “I want— I want you.”

“Rey…” Her name fell from him with a degree of uncertainty, then he gasped as she shifted her hips, rolling them over so that he was beneath her again. “Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life,” she promised him, then she sat up, resting her hands on his bare chest as she sat back on his lower abdomen, and smiled down at him. “Because you’re not the only one who’s wanted this for centuries. I—I never told you what I dreamt that night we shared a tent, did I?”

Ben’s eyes went wide, memories flooding him of that morning he’d woken up beside her, and sworn he’d heard her moaning in her sleep. Had she really been—?  _ Holy shit.  _ They had wasted so much fucking time, and he knew they couldn’t afford to waste anymore. “You dreamed about me like this?”

“Not exactly,” she replied, tracing a finger along the line of his pectoral muscles. “We were laying side by side, complaining about how neither of us had lain with another in decades, and you slipped your hand in my waistband.”

He swore then, nearly coming from image that put in his head alone. “Fuck.”

“And I ground my ass against your cock until we were both on the edge, but right before we could finish—“

“The gunshot, the gunshot from Captain Canady.”

“The same man who shot me not five minutes later, and stopped us from—“

“Our first kiss,” he finished again, nodding as he recalled the feeling of pressing her slowly into the ground, rolling his weight gently on top of her as his lips drew closer and closer to hers. He’d regretted not finishing that moment in the tent more than anything, but  _ fuck _ now that he knew what had really happened that morning, he somehow regretted it even more. “I wanted to kiss you that morning, and if he hadn’t shown up, I wouldn’t have waited until I marched with General Sherman to do it.”

Rey gave him a breathy laugh, then she reached up for one of the straps of her brassiere, and slid it slowly down her shoulder. “There’s no Canady now,” she said, and he struggled to focus on her words as she slowly revealed more skin to him. “No one’s ever going to interrupt us again.” She then slid the other strap down her shoulder, and allowed Ben to reach around her back, undoing the hooks holding it in place. “It’s just us.”

“This can’t start anything can it?” he asked quietly. “I know I’ve never fathered children, but you… have you ever…?”

She shook her head. “No, I haven’t bled since before I can’t remember either. I’m assuming that stopped being a possibility for us with the lightning strike,” she said, then he undid the last clasp binding her brassiere, and she slid the straps from her arms, tossing it into the pile of their clothing. “I don’t think we have to worry about that.”

A light chuckle escaped him, then he took a moment to stare at her, watching her chest rise and fall with every breath she took. “You couldn’t just be the most wonderful person I’ve ever met, could you?” he asked, letting his fingers skim up her sides. “You had to be bea—“

She put a finger to his lips. “Ben, I love you, but if you don’t stop talking I will go upstairs and finish myself again without you.”

Ben sat up then, taking her face in his hands, and kissing her in response. Her words echoed in his mind, harmonizing with the flickering of the fire as he held her in his arms, reveling in the feeling of her warmth as she pressed herself against him. The two then leaned back against the front of her couch, his spine pressing against the soft furniture as he slid one hand back into her hair, and the other around her waist. 

Distantly, he was aware that her hands had moved, shifting down so that they were tugging on the waistband of his boxer shorts in an effort to free his cock from its confines. He let go of the grip he had on her hair to help her, lifting his hips slightly in order to push the fabric down his thighs, then he slowly peeled it the rest of the way off with minimal effort, flicking them away from his body with the world’s smallest kick before he focused his attention entirely on Rey. 

They pulled away from their kiss then, both of them hyper aware of the significance of this moment. After nearly a thousand years, they were completely bare to one another for the first time, completely vulnerable in a way they had never been before. It was the most frightening and erotic thing he’d ever experienced, but he knew in the bottom of his heart there would never be a better moment than here, right now, on Rey’s carpet with the fire crackling in the background, shielding them from the chilly, mid-western winter. 

Looking into her eyes, he could tell she felt the same. Wordlessly, he reached up behind his neck, and grasped one of her hands in his, pulling it into his field of view as she watched, remaining equally silent while he stared at them. Those hands had done so much, and Ben’s eyes began to mist once more as the sea of memories took over, and all those things that had led them to this moment came rushing back. Feeling a bit overwhelmed, he shifted his hand, lacing his fingers with hers, and watching as she moved with him to fold them over one another. “Rey, I…” A lump began forming in his throat, making him certain that this was the moment he’d began to shed tears and be unable to stop. If the shine in her hazel irises was any indication, she was in the same boat. 

“I know,” she said softly, then she leaned forward, kissing him for several seconds before she rested her forehead against his. “Ben, I love you, too.” Her voice was shaky as she spoke, and the sound of it did him in, forcing a tear to fall from his eye onto his cheek as she rested her free hand on his chest. “I think I always will.”

“Good,” Ben replied, laughing even as tears began to fall from both of their eyes. “Cause you can’t get rid of me if you decide you’ve changed your mind.”

Little giggles left her in response, then she let go of his hand, brushing a strand of his hair out of his face, then it joined the one on his chest, and both of them slowly began to drift down. “I won’t change my mind.” Then she glanced down, gasping slightly as she took in the sight of his own fully naked body, seeing him for the first time the same way he’d seen her just a minute earlier. Her mouth was open, but no sound came out as her eyes flickered back up ever so briefly to meet his, then she reached down a shaking hand, causing his breathing to stop entirely as she gripped his cock in her fingers, and began stroking him slowly. 

It really had been too long since the last time anyone had touched him. He’d gotten a taste of what it felt like to be touched by another human being a few minutes ago when she’d grinded against him, but that didn’t quite compare to this. The first touch she gave to him sent his entire body feeling as if it were electric, as if lightning ran through his veins, and he full body shivered from the feeling it gave him. “Rey,” he breathed, saying her name like it was something holy, and for a man who had no gods, he supposed it was. 

She shushed him, then shifted on top of him, stroking him a few more times as she positioned him at her entrance, and they both seemed to pause in that last moment before they finally fell over the precipice they’d been standing on for so long. Rey’s eyes were dark but gleaming with unshed tears as she stared down at him, and through his own she looked blurry, but he found himself quickly unable to care about that as she leaned forward, and kissed him so tenderly, he thought he must’ve imagined it. 

What he didn’t imagine, though, was the feeling of the woman he loved slowly sheathing his cock inside of her for the first time. When he first felt the tip of his cock press into her entrance, Ben gasped against her lips, breath stuttering out of him as he exhaled sharply, and gripped her tightly in his arms, fingers digging slightly into the skin of her back as waves of pleasure rushed through him. But Rey was nowhere near finished with him, and so he held himself together for a little while longer as she sank down further along the length of it, letting out a soft little moan that sent chills running up his spine. 

“Oh,  _ fuck, _ ” Rey whispered, gasping as she went down further, nearly taking him all the way in before she decided she’d reached her limit. When she didn’t move for a few seconds, Ben was worried he’d done something wrong, but before he could ask, she shook her head, and ran her fingers through his slightly damp hair again. “I’m okay. You’re just… You’re bigger than I expected.”

He gave her a little snort of laughter in response, then he traced little circles around the ridges of her spine with his fingers as she adjusted to the feeling of having him inside of her. “I’m not sure if you’re saying that’s a good thing.”

“It’s perfect, Ben,” she promised him, then she reached up, and wiped one of his tears off his cheeks. “You’re perfect.” Without saying another word, she wrapped her arms around his shoulders again, and began to move on top of him, capturing his lips in the most intense, heated kiss of his life as sheer euphoria erupted in his veins. 

The passionate kiss was soon broken as Ben began to drag his kisses down onto her neck, sucking a mark into her skin as she rode him, moaning against her neck as she ground down on his cock. In all his years, he would swear he’d never felt anything quite like this. Despite both of them having remained celibate for the past few centuries, neither seemed to be struggling with this. Making love to Rey came naturally to him; it was as easy as breathing and infinitely more enjoyable. His sole regret in life was not doing it sooner, but that was the past. 

The present and future were his only concerns. 

Both of them were trembling, and Ben’s heart swelled with joy and pride as Rey whispered his name again, swearing furiously as she picked up her pace, and he pulled back, watching her as she gasped from the pleasure he brought her. As her eyes blinked open again, Ben watched a tear fall down onto her cheeks, and he reached up a shaky hand to wipe it away. “It’s okay,” he whispered, burying his face in her shoulder. “I’m never leaving you again.”

“Neither am I,” she replied, gasping the last word as he reached a hand between them, and began to rub circles into her clit, gripping her back more firmly with his other arm as she arched into his touch. Her hands fisted tightly into his hair as she swore incoherently. Ben almost laughed at the sound, tears falling with each little chuckle as he held her close. 

“I’ve got you.” His voice was weak, trembling the same way his entire body had been as he spoke, but Rey didn’t seem to care, and neither did he. 

“Don’t let go,” she breathed, features cinched from pleasure as she rode him even faster, and he too cried out from the feelings that spread throughout his entire body. 

Ben shook his head, pressing a kiss to her cheek as he held her even more tightly. “Never,” he replied.  _ Never again.  _ It would take the entire world turning to turmoil, ripping itself apart, and risking destroying the life they were building for him to ever even consider leaving her again. Even then, he would return the second he was able. There would be no more four year waits. She wouldn’t even have to wait a month. He would be back for her within hours, and that was only if they found an extreme reason to be separated. 

If he — if  _ they _ — had their way, Ben would never let it happen again. They’d spent a thousand years more or less alone, with scant few moments of company scattered in between the wasted years. The next thousand, he vowed to change. Rey deserved better, and so did he. They deserved a chance to be by the other’s side the way he’d envisioned it from the moment he’d realized there was someone else like him. 

A smile parted his lips as he stared at her, then she kissed him fiercely, moaning into the kiss as Ben’s hand slid down her back, and gripped her ass like it was his lifeline. Laughter nearly escaped him, but he had a feeling that with the tears still forming in his eyes, the noise that left him would resemble a sob, so he stayed quiet, kissing her as intensely as he was able.  _ God,  _ it felt good to be able to do that with her now. Ever since she’d confessed her feelings for him a decade earlier, he’d found himself unable to wait for the day they reunited, for the day he’d be able to kiss her again. 

Going a step further than just a kiss any time they wanted to, though, was something he was equally excited for. As he felt his orgasm building, Ben became very aware that their chances of leaving that house much for anything other than firewood and food were phenomenally slim. He wanted to stay in there with her until April brought green back to the grass and melted the snow, and not ever come outside. 

“Rey, I’m gonna come,” he warned her, speeding up the circulation of his thumb as he spoke. “I’m—I’m gonna—“

“M-me too,” she replied, gasping his name as his thumb sped up its actions, and her movements seemed to stutter as she came around his cock. The hands in his hair fisted even more tightly, almost to the point of pain as she rode him through her orgasm. 

The feeling of Rey coming on top of him sent his mind reeling, and he soon followed her over the edge, a hand splaying out over her back for support as he came inside of her. “Rey— _ fuck! _ ” were the only two words he was capable of speaking. The only other sounds he made were obscene moans and cries of the name of a holy figure he didn’t believe in. The fire’s light danced in his vision, embers burning behind his shut eyelids as she rode him through it. 

More tears fell from his eyes as he came down from his high, the sound of Rey’s panting bringing him back to reality. Slowly, his eyes began to flutter open, finding hers as they remained hooded, then shifted down to stare at her pink, still kiss swollen lips. Neither of them said a word, both of them processing what had just happened as they sat there on her floor, the fire providing the sole noise in the room beside their breathing. 

After a few seconds, Ben leaned forward, kissing Rey as gently as possible, even pulling back every few seconds to allow his very starved lungs a taste of sweet, sweet oxygen. Smiles broke out on their faces between each kiss, sobs and laughter providing a new chorus of sound each time they parted. Tears of joy, love, and unspeakable pleasure at being with the other person spilled onto their cheeks, and He thought it might have been the most beautiful thing he’d ever experienced in his life. 

“I love you,” he whispered as she pulled herself off of his cock, but didn’t stray from his lap. No, she stayed right where she was, just holding him by the fire and occasionally pressing feather light kisses to his face. 

“I’ll never tire of saying it; I love you, too,” she replied, then she leaned forward again, and kissed him till they both needed to breathe once more. 

Centuries of longing had once stood between them, and in a single night, they’d torn them all down. All their walls, all their defenses, excuses, and distance had fallen, and now there was nothing but open space ahead of them. For the first time in a thousand years, they were completely, utterly  _ free _ .   
  
  
  



	23. Chicago, 1931 CE

Sunlight had never felt so warm on Rey’s cheek. In the middle of January, without a lick of clothing on—save for the sheets she and Ben were currently wrapped up in—she had never felt more snug in her bed. The last several nights had been some of the coldest yet, and after getting home from a day working at the local soup kitchen, she never seemed to warm herself up no matter how many blankets she used. 

Ben had only been with her for a day, and already so much had changed. 

At present, he was sleeping soundly beneath her. Well, beneath her head, at least. She was using his shoulder and chest as a pillow, and one of her legs was wound around one of his as a hand rested peacefully on one of his pectoral muscles. As her eyes fluttered open, she smiled involuntarily from the sheer joy she felt just being in his arms, one of which was wrapped around her waist while the other was wrapped around her shoulders as he held her close to him like he’d never let go. 

It all felt surreal, like it was some part of one of the many dreams she’d had about this exact thing happening, but no, it was all true. This was her reality. She was really in Ben’s arms, and they were very, very naked in her bed after staying up rather late catching up on all their lost time. Rey giggled softly as she let a hand come up to her lips, feeling a little tingling sensation there as she recalled the events of the night before. After they’d both come in her living room, they’d lain in front of the fire talking and catching up on the last ten years until it went out, and both of them quickly felt cold. 

All it had taken was a cheeky muttering of “ _ I can think of something to warm us up, _ : in her ear, and she’d led him to her bedroom—their night clothes still discarded on the floor—to resume what they’d started. From there, they made love until he could hear a distant grandfather clock chime thrice, indicating it was three hours after midnight, and approaching dawn rather quickly. Deciding they were both actually rather tired, the two cuddled up beneath her sheets, and soon fell asleep, still covered in a sheen of sweat.

Rey had a bet with herself that if it weren’t for her automatically healing body, she would still be sore from how intense it had all been. Regret, though, was the farthest thing from what she felt. All she could feel was euphoria and a sense of relief on top of the emotion she’d long since recognized in her feelings for him as  _ love.  _ She loved him, and he loved her, and now that they both knew it and were together, their lives were just beginning. 

Beneath her, Ben stirred, slowly coming into wakefulness as he stretched out his legs, then his body went lax. A smile blossomed on her face, and she slowly leaned up, propping herself on one arm while the other palm splayed out on his chest, and she glimpsed his eyes as they blinked open. Brown, dark, deep brown with the barest hint of gold that she was openly mesmerized by. She hummed fondly as she shifted forward, and pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. “Good morning.”

“Mmm…” He turned his head as she went in for another kiss, and though his eyes were not fully open yet and sleep still held him partially within its clutches, he kissed her properly on the lips. 

Shock filled her veins, but she didn’t protest, leaning into the kiss as the arm on her shoulders shifted, and she felt his hand stroking her hair so gently she almost didn’t even feel it. The corners of Ben’s mouth tilted up into the kiss, and she could feel him smiling as he adjusted his grip on her, making sure she was secure in his arms as he shifted his hips, and rolled on top of her. Soft moans escaped her as the kiss deepened, but didn’t intensify. It was by all standards, a lazy, good morning kiss. It was a greeting, and Rey welcomed it with open arms. 

_ God,  _ it felt good to kiss him again. Nothing in her thousand year life had ever felt quite as right as being in his arms and having his lips on hers. The fact that they both were still naked on top of it all had her practically glowing with happiness, and as heat began pooling between her legs, Rey had a good feeling that this lazy morning kiss was about to transition into lazy morning sex. 

It had been centuries. She’d more than earned it. 

“Good morning to you, too,” Ben said softly as he pulled away, and she saw his eyes lit up with joy beneath the dark, wavy curtain of hair that had fallen into his face. 

She laughed as she reached up, and smoothed it out of the way. “There, now I can see you.”

“I can’t believe you’re real.” His eyes were filled with disbelief as they stared at her, and she caressed his cheek, watching as he leaned into her touch. “I can’t believe  _ this _ is real.”

Rey shook her head. “Neither can I. I’d started to think…” She laughed half-heartedly. “I’d started to wonder if I’d ever have the courage to tell you—or if we’d ever be blessed with time.” With a happy sigh, she slid her hands up around her shoulders, curling her fingers in the waves of his hair. “Ben, last night was everything.  _ You _ were everything.”

A sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob escaped him, and she felt his thumb glide gently over the skin of her cheek. “You’re everything, too.” Another laugh. “Are we just going to spend the rest of our lives, however long they may be, finding different ways to say ‘I love you?’”

“I’m alright with that if you are.”

“I’m more than okay with it,” he replied, then his face grew serious. “But what do we do with time? I know we asked that question last night, but we got a bit distracted.”

“Go out like we did in 1922.” She grasped his hair a little more tightly, and leaned his forehead against hers. “We go and get dinner, see the city, make love for the next week straight, preferably, and maybe see a film. They can talk in them now. No more shocked faces and text on screen.”

“Yes, I’ve seen them. The first film I ever saw without you was a ‘talking picture,’ but, if I’m being honest, I don’t remember a thing about it,” he said, then he pressed a feather light kiss to her lips. “Rey, all I could think of the whole time was kissing you back in that theater, and not remembering a damn thing about what we saw. I missed the sound of the audience shushing us, and all I could feel was… sadness.”

She ran her fingers through his hair again, stroking it gently as she processed his words. God, she knew that loneliness well. She’d experienced it the entire nine years they’d been separated, and she’d been lucky enough to have Maz at her side. “I felt it, too.” Pressing a brief, gentle kiss to his lips, she sighed, remembering the friend who was undoubtedly waiting with breakfast on the table next door. “Oh,  _ fuck _ .”

“What is it?”

“Mmm, Maz is my next door neighbor now, yeah?”

Ben looked a little confused as he pulled back from her, but nodded. “Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“Well, we have breakfast together most mornings, and if she notices I’m late she comes inside—I gave her a key—and talks me out of whatever depressive episode has kept me in bed  _ this time. _ ” A small laugh escaped her, then she rested a hand on Ben’s bicep. “What I’m saying is, she looks out for me, and I’ll bet I’m already half an hour late.”

“So we should expect to be interrupted soon?” Ben asked, sounding thoroughly disappointed. 

Rey rubbed gentle circles onto the skin of his arm, wishing she could tell him no and ask him if he wouldn’t mind repeating some of the events of the night before one more time, but she probably had minutes—maybe  _ seconds— _ before Maz came through her bedroom door. If she’d managed to tell her friend last night that Ben was back, maybe this wouldn’t have been a problem, but they’d gotten so lost in one another so quickly, she just hadn’t had the time. “Yes, we should,” she replied, then she patted his arm. “Come on, we need to get clothes on and try not to make it obvious that we’ve been having sex all night.”

Reluctantly, Ben rolled off of her, and they both sat up in the bed before getting off of it, and heading toward the walk-in closet on the side of the room. The night before, she’d told him she saved a few of the things men donated to one of the shelters she also spent her time volunteering at, hanging them up in the closet alongside her own things, and so that morning they got dressed together. She threw on a cream blouse and a plain brown skirt, nearly forgetting to put on stockings beneath as she got distracted by a half naked Ben shaking out his shirt.  _ Fuck _ , he really was quite nice to look at. His chest was excellently chiseled, like Michaelangelo himself had sculpted it from marble, and she had vivid memories of running her hands—and later, her nails—across its expanse. 

Forcing herself to focus, she sat back on her bed, and slid the stockings slowly up her thighs. At some point, she felt his eyes on her, watching as the act forced her skirt to hike up, and she heard his breathing shudder audibly. “You know, normally people only get aroused watching someone take  _ off  _ clothing.”

“I happen to enjoy watching you do both.” Ben’s eyes weren’t on her, they were now focused on his hands as they did up the button of his shirt, but there was a smirk on his face as they occasionally flickered in her direction. Now that he was open about his feelings, she was quickly discovering that Ben Solo was a shameless flirt, and she absolutely loved to flirt back. 

“Maybe I enjoy watching you, too,” she said as she finished with her stockings, and adjusted her skirt. Without saying another word, she grabbed for a pair of black Mary Jane heels, and slid them on over the nylon. As she finished putting her shoes on, she rushed over to her vanity mirror on the near side of the room, and inspected her reflection. Her hair looked a rather frightful mess, but after a bit of combing through it with her fingers, she managed to make it look about halfway decent before she finally heard the sound of her front door being knocked on and then open. 

“Rey, you better be awake when I get up there!” Her friend’s very loud, slightly angry voice shouted. “You may have forever, but I don’t!”

“That’s her favorite line,” Rey told Ben as she examined the waves in her hair. They’d have to do for now, since she definitely wouldn’t be getting a proper curl in before Maz came up the stairs. “Are you dressed?” She looked over to see him completely covered by the suit she’d given to him, brown with lighter colored pinstripes, and a tie of a similar color. His hair was still slightly mussed, but in her eyes, he looked just fine. Still, her friend wouldn’t quite think so if she saw his hair, and Rey laughed as she gestured to it. “Might want to comb that out before you leave, it looks quite obvious that I’ve had my hands in it.”

“What if I want it to be obvious you had your hands in it?”

She scoffed her laughter. “You lived with her for six months, you know Maz will never let you hear the end of it.”

Ben froze, then he hurriedly began to comb his fingers through his hair, causing Rey to practically guffaw as she left the room, and walked down the stairs toward her living room, where she could hear her friend pacing about, waiting for a response. “Maz!” She walked into the room, wrapping her friend in a warm hug in greeting. “Sorry I’m late, I should’ve talked to you last night.” 

Maz looked at her skeptically but knowingly as she pulled away, and soon she had a finger pointing sternly toward her chest. “You’re clearly not sad this time. Something’s gotten into you.”

_ Well, yes, actually, right where we’re standing.  _ A nervous chuckle fell from her lips. “No, not quite, but… Maz, I found him last night.”

It took a second, but soon recognition dawned in Max’s eyes. “Ben?”

“Ben,” Rey confirmed, then she smiled widely as she looked back in the direction of her bedroom. “I found him living on the streets, so I took him in, cleaned him up, and…”  _ Made love to him until I couldn’t see straight.  _ “...went to bed.”

Maz chuckled as she moved past her, giving Rey a wink as she approached the stairs. “Oh, I’m sure you did.”

“ _ Maz!” _

“Child, you know all I care about is that you’re happy,” Maz said, walking back toward her, and wrapping her fingers around her hands. “But you must tell me, was he good in bed?”

Feeling head flood her cheeks with the inevitable flush of color, Rey ran a hand through the waves of her hair. “I’m—We—“  _ Damn,  _ she couldn’t hide anything from Maz, they’d known one another for too long, and the other woman now knew her secret. There was no lying to her, and so she nodded. “Yes, he was quite good.”

“Ah, there it is,” Maz said, prodding a finger into Rey’s sternum. “The truth always comes out.”

“Maz, I’m happy, for once I feel like we actually stand a chance at being together, and I don’t think anyone or anything will take it from us again—“

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Rey, I’m just glad to see you smiling again.” She patted her friend casually on the shoulder. “It’s been far too long since I’ve seen it.”

Another shy smile parted Rey’s lips, then she heard the sound of Ben’s footsteps coming down the hall, and heading toward the staircase. “Ah, speak of the devil and he will appear,” she said, then she walked back toward the staircase. “Don’t say anything crude to him.”

“Oh, but that takes away the fun,” Maz grumbled, then upon receiving a light-hearted but stern glare from Rey, she nodded. “Fine, I won’t be crude. But tell me, before he comes closer, was he… well endowed?”

“ _ Maz!” _

“I take it she’s teasing you miserably?” Ben asked, averting Rey’s eyes to the top of the stairs as he began to descend them, buttoning the cuffs on his sleeves as he went. 

She scoffed. “Quite so, I’m afraid. I think it may get worse once you’re down here,” Rey warned him, watching as he grinned and shook his head on his way down. “But don’t let that stop you.”

“Believe me, I wasn’t planning to.” He finished buttoning his sleeves as he reached the bottom of the stairs, causing Maz to smirk at them knowingly as her friend took his arm, and beamed up at him. “Are we ready to go?”

Rey glanced over at Maz, observing the other woman’s thick winter coat, which she appeared to have donned just to make the quick trip between their two nearby houses. “I trust it’s perfectly freezing outside?”

“Quite so, I’m afraid.” As she pointed between them teasingly, Maz’s eyebrows waggled as she watched them. “You’ll need more than just each other to keep warm.”

Nodding mostly to herself, Rey patted Ben’s arm, then rode up on the balls of her feet to press a kiss to his cheek, still hardly able to believe that was something she could now do with him. “I’m going to go grab our coats. Need anything from upstairs?” She waited until Ben shook his head before gently patting his arm, and making her exit up the stairs, listening to the voices of the two people she cared for most mingling in the living space. 

As she walked back into their bedroom, she couldn’t help the smile that rose to her face upon the sight of the crumpled sheets. They were finally, properly together, and after just one night, it showed that they were ready to begin their life together, but she couldn’t help but shake the feeling that something was off. It wasn’t that something was wrong with them being together, that was perfectly fine, but what was wrong was the  _ place.  _ This house carried so much of Rey’s pain even though she’d only been there a couple of months. It held so many dark feelings in it, and though it was where she’d first consummated her relationship with Ben, she knew it couldn’t be their first proper home together. 

They needed to find somewhere else, she realized, somewhere they could properly find there’s. She wanted a stupid little house with a view that made her sigh when she parted the curtains in the mornings. Somewhere she could take a camera and take a thousand scenic pictures of them that could be hung on walls. That place wasn’t here, it wasn’t even in Chicago, but where was it?

Rey shook that thought from her mind. He’d only just come through her doors. Surely he wouldn’t want to move again so soon, would he? Only time—and slipping it casually into conversation—would tell. Bringing herself back to reality, she walked over to the closet, and pulled out two coats, grabbing two pairs of gloves with her other hand before she headed back downstairs toward Ben and Maz. 

“... you hear me? If you break her heart, I will find a way to kill you, Ben Solo,” Maz was whispering to him sternly as Rey walked back out into the hallway. 

A faintly squeaked, “ _ Yes, ma’am,”  _ was uttered from Ben in response, nearly causing Rey to fall over laughing as she began her descent down the stairs. 

“Good, but I trust you, for some odd reason.” Maz was crossing her arms, still unaware that Rey was reentering the room as she threatened and reassured the man her friend loved. “You’re good with her, you make her happy, but just remember what happens if that stops.”

At that moment, she finally walked into the living room, barely masking the snicker that threatened to burst forth as Ben turned to face her, relief written plain as day on his face. He breathed her name on a contented sigh, and as she handed him his coat, bent down to kiss her forehead briefly before throwing it on, and accepting the gloves in her other hand. “Thanks, though I guess it doesn’t matter. Not like it can kill us.”

“No, but it’s still uncomfortable,” Rey replied, putting her gloves, then her coat on. “I’d prefer we wore coats instead of freezing our asses off, even if it is only twenty feet.”

Ben rolled his eyes, but nodded as he adjusted his coat, then made adjustments to hers before stepping back to examine them both. Though she suspected he was just making an excuse to ogle her, she didn’t mind, and waited patiently for him to finish before he finally took her hand, and the three of them walked out into the cold Chicago winter. 

*

Breakfast was only slightly awkward. Ben and Maz spent most of it catching up on the last ten years and reconnecting while the latter of the two teased the former continually about his relationship with Rey. Both of them spent breakfast with pink cheeks and choked lungs as a result of attempting not to cough up their food. 

“Now that you’re together, though, I must ask,” Maz said, folding her hands over one another on the table as she looked between the two. “What is your plan? I’ve found work with a new band downtown, but the two of you…”

They looked at each other nervously, seeming almost as if they were holding their breath, waiting patiently for the other to speak. To her surprise, he broke the silence first. “I honestly am not sure,” he said, wiping at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “But, ever since I left New York I’ve been steadily heading west. There’s a whole part of the country I’ve yet to see, but…” He looked at Rey, reaching his hand across the space between them, and waiting until hers was resting soundly in his before he glanced back at Maz. “Now it just depends on what Rey wants.”

_ What Rey wants.  _ What  _ she  _ wants. God, and she hadn’t thought she could love him more. “I want that, too. I can’t say I’ve enjoyed my time here, my house holds nothing but miserable memories and sadness, and—“ she looked at Maz. “You’re the only thing that’s keeping me here now, if I’m being honest.”

A small laugh escaped the seemingly older woman. “Oh, Rey, don’t let me keep you,” she assured her, then she leaned forward. “Unlike you, I’m thriving here. I have a new place to perform, I’m financially stable, and I’ve… I've met someone who might just replace the hole my husband left in my heart. Band mate of mine, tall, a bit too much hair, but he cares about me. I won’t be alone if you go.” Her eyes were so sincere, so soft and gentle that Rey was taken aback. It occurred to her then just how much Maz had aged since they’d met. There were now visible lines near her eyes, and hints of grey shining in her dark hair. It was beginning of the same process so many friends had gone through, and she knew that within the next thirty to fifty years, she would be burying another friend. Maybe it would be best to get out now, while she could still pretend Maz was out there somewhere eventually. 

“You’re certain?” Rey’s eyes suddenly felt misty, like a lump almost impossible to speak over suddenly formed in her throat. “Maz, I can’t just leave you here—“

“ _ Go.” _ It was an order, not a request, and in that split second it became clear that the other woman meant business. “Your life is a long one to live, so go on and live it. See everything most eyes won’t get to see. Take advantage of your years; both of you.”

At this, she blinked a tear she hadn’t even noticed forming from her eye, and looked at Ben, watching as he gave her a nod, and squeezed her hand. “We should go. I’ve heard California is beautiful, but I’ve never gone.”

“Neither have I.” She let out a shaky breath, then she laughed. “But it’s a big state, so I have to ask just where the hell we’ll be going?”

Ben paused a moment, then he rested a hand on her arm. “How about Los Angeles?”

“Los Angeles?”

He shrugged. “We keep saying we want to see movies and go out like every other couple does, and where better to do that than the movie capital of the world?” His fingers began to trace circles in her forearm, and suddenly she could vividly picture it. She’d seen the lights of Hollywood Boulevard in pictures, seen the glamorous movie stars and palm trees, and heard tales of how magical it all was, and she could see her and Ben there like it was happening in front of her. They’d spend their nights watching movies and exploring the town, their weekends driving up the coast and lounging on the beach, and their days wrapped up in each other when they weren’t working whatever jobs they had to maintain some semblance of a steady income to support their lifestyle. 

Yes, they would be good in California, and so Rey gave him an enthusiastic nod, and kissed him on the cheek. “Okay, we’ll go to Los Angeles,” she said, then she kissed him again. “When do you want to leave?”

“I’d leave as soon as you can,” Maz interrupted. “Forecast is calling for snow in the next few days, blizzard conditions. I wouldn’t want to drive in that weather if I were you.”

“But Maz, that would mean I’d be leaving you rather quickly--”

“Child, I’ve already told you.” Her friend leaned forward, and slid her hand a little closer to Rey. “I care that you’re happy, and you know where I live. I won’t move without telling you. You can mail me to keep in touch, and who knows? I may find I have reason to visit Hollywood.”

The mail system was something Rey lived in constant fear of. Ever since it had miserably failed her and Ben in the nineteenth century, she’d been weary of it. There had been a reason why they hadn’t bothered to use it once they’d separated in New York. Both were too afraid that they’d have no contact from the other unexpectedly. It was better for them if they ripped the bandage off sooner rather than later. But Maz wasn’t going anywhere, unlike her and Ben, and so maybe, just maybe, she could finally trust in it just a little. Reluctantly, she gave her friend a nod, and glanced at the man she loved. “We’ll want to start packing, then. It’ll be a long drive to California, and my car doesn’t have the fastest speed around.”

“Then that gives us plenty of time to see the country,” he assured her, then he brushed his thumb over the back of her knuckles, causing Rey to shiver as his eyes locked onto hers. “I’ve heard Colorado is beautiful this time of year.”

“It’s settled then.” Maz wagged a finger between the two. “You’re both going to be out of my sight come Friday, and I fully expect reports back from paradise, you hear?”

“Yes, Maz,” they replied at the same time, causing all three of them to laugh as they resumed picking at their breakfast, the rest of the morning passing them by with ease as they mentally counted down the hours to the true beginning of their lives. 

*

When they got back to their house later that afternoon, the snow was beginning to fall. It wasn’t the snowfall that Maz had promised would render the roads virtually inaccessible, but it was enough that Rey could see the snowflakes out of the corner of her eye as she watched them through their bedroom window.  _ Theirs.  _ The bedroom window was, for the next two days, theirs. After that, it would be some other window in a paradise she could only dream of, and pray wasn’t as cold. For now, this was it, this was their house, where they lived as most couples did, and did stupid little domestic things as if they hadn’t lived through centuries worth of emotional torment. 

At the moment, those domestic things consisted of kissing. She wasn’t even sure how it started, but they’d walked into their bedroom and before either of them said a word, her hands were tangled in his hair, and his arms were wrapped around her waist while he kissed her so gently she thought she was floating like the little white flakes outside. As he lifted her up off the floor and began to walk her toward the bed, she started to think that maybe, just maybe, she was. 

Ben broke the kiss to lay her back onto their mattress, the sheets still mussed from the night before as she settled down over them, and looked up into his darkened irises. Of course there was lust in his gaze, but his arousal couldn’t taint the love and adoration she saw there as she let her hands drift down over the fabric of his suit jacket, and she slowly undid the buttons. Once she had the jacket unbuttoned, he didn’t hesitate to remove it and launch it across the room before his lips descended upon hers again, and god, he was always going to have this effect on her, wasn’t he?

Grinning into the kiss, Rey hooked a leg around his hips, and twisted them so that he was now beneath her, and she was straddling him much like she had been the night before, but this time he was completely flat on his back. Like the first time they’d had sex, his hands were casually caressing the swell of her ass, but this time, they were slowly bunching up the brown skirt she’d put on that morning, preparing to make a path for his fingers to be able to tear apart the nylon of her stockings like she knew he so desperately wanted to. 

_ Well,  _ these were her nicest pair of stockings, and no matter how much she loved him or how sexy the thought of letting him tear them apart was, she wasn’t going to let him do it just yet. He could wait for another day to rip the thin fabric, perhaps when they reached the land of sunshine. 

An idea came to mind, proposing an alternate solution to the stocking ripping that she was sure he’d find equally appealing. After all, given what he’d done for her last night just before she’d ridden him within an inch of his life, she owed him a bit of a favor, and she wanted to know what  _ he _ tasted like. With a grin on her face, she pulled away from the kiss, and stared down at him, reveling in his dazed, confused expression for a second before she kissed him again, tugging his lower lip between her teeth as she retreated before resting her forehead against his. “Let me taste you.”

He was completely, utterly breathless as he answered her. “Wh-what?”

“Let,” she pressed a kiss to his jaw. “Me.” His cheek. “Taste.” His temple, where a bead of sweat had begun the early stages of its life already. “You.”

The circuits in Ben’s brain seemed to have broken, and he just stared at her in disbelief, but in the good way that said he was utterly delighted by this unexpected turn of events. “You want to…”

“ _ Yes, _ but only if you want me to.”

A nod. “I want you to.”

Ben’s breath hitched, then he went shockingly still as Rey crawled back on the bed, gesturing for him to move closer to the headboard as she examined the button of his trousers. Once he was settled, she had her hands on it immediately, undoing it with a practiced ease before unzipping the fly at an unnatural speed. He was trembling a little as she began to slide his trousers and pants down his hips like it was nothing, but she paused in her movements, taking in how nervous he seemed as she watched him. “Don’t be afraid.”

“I’m just still not used to this,” he whispered, then a strand of her hair was being tucked behind her ear. “Physical intimacy, especially physical intimacy with you. We hid from each other for so long…”

“I know.” She leaned down, and pressed a kiss to the lower part of his stomach through the cotton of his shirt. “But we aren’t hiding anymore, and now I just… I want to do everything with you, and that doesn’t just mean traveling.”

He shivered. “I want to do everything with you, too.”

Rey kept her eyes on his as she continued to guide his pants further down his hips, only breaking the eye contact when his cock was free from its confines, and she swallowed when she realized how hard he was. Breathing his name, she looked back up into his brown irises again as she took him in her hand. The way his breath hitched at the contact had an unexpected wetness pooling between her thighs, making her certain she wouldn’t be able to survive the night without finishing off herself as well. 

His eyes were intent on her the entire time as she began to languidly stroke his erection, causing his breathing to stutter as she stroked his still hardening cock. She felt nervous as she looked down at it, but tried not to let it show as she bent down, and swiped her tongue over his tip. Both of them trembled in the aftermath, but as she locked eyes with him one last time, he gave her a nod, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was  _ right.  _

Not a word was spoken between them as Rey finally began to take him in her mouth, but a low, guttural moan escaped Ben, making her feel  _ alive  _ as she slowly descended along the length of his cock. She took him in inch by inch, living for the way he shuddered beneath her as she finally reached her limit, then her cheeks hollowed as she began to suck. Swears that bordered on incoherent gibberish left his mouth as his head tilted back to meet the pillow. 

The corners of her mouth twitched up into a sly grin as she began to move up, stroking the base of his cock gently as she swirled her tongue again over his tip, finding that she liked the way he tasted before she went down again, watching him closely the entire time. She was absolutely determined to see his face when he came, and she hadn’t quite gotten the chance to the night before. She’d been too distracted in her own orgasmic bliss at the time, but now—now she had the focus and the drive, and she was going to  _ watch  _ as he came undone. 

Ben was breathing hard as she sucked his cock with fervor, his chest heaving as he whispered her name like it was the only word he was capable of speaking. It certainly was the only one she could understand out of all the small noises he was making. She loved how responsive he was, and as one of his hands threaded fingers through the waves of her hair and tugged slightly, she felt an excited thrill rush through her body. This was her life— _ their  _ life—now, and it would be for the rest of their eternal life spans. 

The last thousand years just might’ve been worth it if the next thousand could be spent just like this. 

“Oh god, Rey, I’m close,” he breathed, finally speaking a coherent sentence for the first time in minutes. “ _ Fuck,  _ I’m so close.”

Rey slowed down her ministrations, and removed her mouth from his cock with a sly grin on her face. “Not yet,” she teased him, but she still continued to stroke him slowly, lazily as she watched his face fall. “I was quite enjoying myself.”

“ _ Rey… _ ” he moaned, his head falling back again, and she grinned as she realized what she’d rendered him into. This man was immortal, unkillable, and had survived more horrors than any other could dream of besides her. He’d had to at some point or another kill and fight other human beings, and left a trail of blood in his wake, and she’d reduced him to a mess of incoherent swears and a hint of begging. It made her feel  _ powerful _ what she’d done to him, and the fire running through her veins, fueled by the rapid beating of her heart spurred her on, causing her to resume making him come undone as she licked again at the tip of his cock, gathering up a bit of pre-come that had collected there. “Did you like the way I taste?” she asked him quietly, pressing a kiss to the side of his cock. “Hmm?”

“ _ Yes.” _

“I like the way you taste, too.” She took him back into her mouth, but still didn’t quite reach the same pace she’d had before. Rey wanted to enjoy this. They would only get one first time for everything they did, and then they had eternity, so she slowed her pace, but still within thirty seconds, his eyes squeezed shut, and his jaw fell open as he came with a shout, and Rey felt warm bursts of his come making their way down her throat. 

Her name continued to be the only coherent noise he made as he finished inside of her, then the only sound that filled the room was that of his panting as she removed herself from him again, and swallowed nervously as she crawled back over him. Taking his face in her hands, she pressed a kiss to his cheek as she sat back over his hips, straddling him as she took sight of his flushed face and dilated pupils. “Amazing,” she breathed, placing her hands gingerly in his chest. 

Ben was still breathing hard as he placed his hands over hers, allowing her to feel how his heart was pounding against his rib cage as he came down from his high. “This is how I want it to be with you in California. This… this is how I always want it to be…”

She nodded as she bent down again, and kissed him, surrendering the oxygen of both their lungs as she twined her fingers in his hair, then she sighed. “I want it, too.” Then she kissed him again. “We’ll leave tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow can’t come soon enough,” he said, then he sighed, placing his palms on her cheeks as his eyes darted between hers. “Rey, I—I’m glad we’re finally here.”

“So am I, but we need to get off this bed and start packing our things,” she said, then she rolled off of him, and laid by his side on the bed, her chest heaving slightly with each breath. “It’s a long journey to California.”

Ben laughed as he pulled his trousers back up, tucking his cock in the confines of his pants, and zipping everything up before he turned onto his side, and wrapped an arm around her waist. There was a look in his eyes, the one she understood the meaning of perfectly without him having to say a word, and she hoped that hers conveyed it back. Silence had fallen over them, which she only noticed when his lips parted slightly, and the corners of them twitched up in a smile. “But we don’t have that many things, so if you don’t mind, I’d like to just lay here kissing you for a while, if that’s alright.”

She didn’t say anything, she just rolled onto her side, and kissed him soundly, allowing herself to get lost in him as the snow fell on their last day in the Windy City, and the future loomed brightly ahead. The lights of Los Angeles were still so far away, but already she could see them shining in her eyes, casting the pain of the past into shadow as she and Ben careened directly into the best decade of their lives. 


	24. Los Angeles, 1931 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey gang. As you've noticed, the chapter count has gone up a bit. It may go up a bit further, but I don't see this going beyond 35 chapters. For now, have some continued fluff.

The next week went by in a blur. Ben and Rey drove through every part of the country, exploring the west in a way they’d never quite done before. They spent the first four days curling up beside one another in the Western states in various hotels, since it had been far too cold to even consider sleeping in their car. Either way, he didn’t mind, he would’ve gladly suffered through the cold if she’d wanted to. He loved her, and that meant he’d do just about anything for her. 

For once, they were allowed to properly become one another’s whole world. On their journey southwest, it felt like he was constantly having an adrenaline rush, like he’d imbibed in too many of the drugs passed on the streets beneath the noses of the police. He was high on his own life, which had finally taken a turn for the better. After centuries of misery and pretending, he could hold her in his arms and be open about the love he felt. 

It had been so long, but now he was free. 

Crossing the California border had been the most wonderful experience of his life. After a long drive through dawn in the Nevada desert, they crossed through the city of Las Vegas, taking a moment to admire its shining lights before they finally drove past the sign that welcomed them to where he knew they’d be living for the next ten years. 

Unlike all the stories he’d heard about California, the sun was not shining, and in spite of the desert climate, the rain was pouring when they got there. The moment they were inside the state line, he turned to look at Rey, and they both burst into laughter. All that talk over the last week about sunshine and golden rays, and the state was currently bathed in the silvery light of an overcast sky while rain came down on them hard enough that they had to pull over from how little they could see. 

It wasn’t that they were afraid for their lives, but they didn’t want to risk anyone else crashing into them and dying or becoming injured as a result. For all they knew, pulling over had just saved a life. 

“Sorry for the detour,” Ben told her, then he placed a hand gently on the edge of her seat. 

“Don’t be, we made it,” she replied, resting her hand over his as she gave him one of those smiles that made him feel as if the sun was, in fact, shining. “And besides, it just gives us time to kill.”

A small laugh fell from his lips, then he shut the engine of the car off, and reached over with his other hand to rest it on her waist as he sighed. “You are going to be the death of me.”

“I hope not, it’d be a very lonely existence without you,” she admitted, a blush creeping up her cheeks as she leaned forward, moving steadily closer to him. “Ben, the inevitability that I was always going to run into you? It honestly kept me going some days. Even when we hated each other, I knew I had something to look forward to. Something was always on the horizon, and—and now I’m not sure what I’d do without that feeling.”

“Neither am I, but it’s a good thing we never have to worry about it, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Ben grinned again as he pulled her over the space between them, watching as she curled up her legs to fit on his lap. Neither of them spoke as she adjusted herself so that she was straddling him, sitting comfortably with her head just beneath the roof of the car. It didn’t leave them much room, but it was enough for him to look up at her and see whole galaxies within her irises. “You’ll never lose me, ever.” He pressed a kiss to her jaw line. “I’m never leaving you again.” Another kiss, this time on the column of her throat. “Because I think even the anticipation of knowing I will see you again will be too much.”

She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, and for a few minutes they just sat there like that in an embrace. His hands came up around her waist, supporting her back as he buried his face in her hair. The scent of her perfume caught his attention as he inhaled, taking in a sweet gulp of oxygen that smelled and tasted specifically like Rey mixed with whatever she’d picked up in Vegas. He didn’t know what it was, but it made him feel like everything surrounding him was  _ her.  _ The very essence of the woman he loved was wrapped around him like a blanket, and he never wanted to leave its comfort. 

A soft hum escaped him as he held her, finding he deeply, deeply enjoyed the simple act of just sitting there with her in their car, listening to the rain fall and the sky wage war above their heads. Part of him feared the storm would manage to leak through the roof, but the car held up perfectly as he pulled back. 

Without a word, he took her face in his hands, and smiled helplessly as he stroked the smooth skin of her cheek with his thumb. She leaned into the touch, both of them fully aware of what the other was thinking without having to say it. They’d had the conversation enough over the last week. Neither could believe, after all this time, that they were finally _ here.  _

“How long do you think the storm’s got?” she asked quietly after a few minutes had gone by. 

He spared a glance out the window, noticing he still could barely see the highway through the sheets of rainfall blanketing the normally arid region. A grin parted his lips. “Could be a while yet.”

“You know exactly what I’m thinking, don’t you?” She waited for his nod before laughing. “I could see it in your eyes.”

“Just like I can see it in yours,” he replied, then he brushed a wavy, brunette strand out of her eyes, and kissed her gently, causing them both to hum from the contact. Her lips were soft against his, each kiss feather light, but carrying an emotional weight far heavier than the physical act itself. Each one felt like some sort of promise, a beautiful sort of oath that devoted them further to each other. With every touch of his lips against hers, it almost felt like he was saying a  _ vow _ . 

_ Whoa _ . Where had  _ that  _ thought come from? He and Rey had technically only been in a relationship for a little more than a week. There was no need— _ absolutely none— _ for him to be thinking about vows. Besides, a wedding would be useless when they knew they had forever anyway, wouldn’t it? 

His heart was still racing at the thought, but just as the vision of Rey in a white lace gown filled his mind, he blocked it off, kissing her a bit more fiercely to distract himself from the severity of his own thoughts. Maybe someday he could and would ask her if marriage was something she wanted, but that day would not be today. It would not be when they’d only just gotten started. Besides, what if she didn’t want to? He didn’t think he’d be able to handle such a possibility. 

So he held her, and kissed her, and smiled as he did, losing himself and all sense of thought as he did. Keeping any semblance of self control became a pipe dream as Rey began to grind down on the erection he could feel building, and a soft little gasp parted his lips as she kissed him on the cheek. “Ben, do you think anyone will see us?” 

A small chuckle, then he spared the torrential downpour a glance. “No, considering I definitely can’t see anything but headlights? I think we’re fine.” He let his hands fall down to her chest, fingertips grazing over the buttons of her shirt before he began to undo them one by one until he was able to successfully pull her blouse from where it was tucked into her skirt. 

She was smiling down at him as he then focused those hands on the bare, muscular skin of her abdomen. Shivers rushed through them both as he moved them up to cover the cups of her brassiere, kissing her again as he felt the hardened peaks of her nipples through the silk. Though she was the one gasping from pleasure, it was Ben who saw stars behind his closed eyelids as he listened to the sound of his name falling from her lips. 

Her hands threading through his hair weren’t much help either. The feeling of her fingers tugging and pulling on the thick, dark strands had him losing focus, almost surrendering completely to  _ her  _ ministrations instead of the ones he was performing on her, but somehow he managed. Soft little moans left her mouth, and combined with the continued little motions against his cock he thought he might come even though they’d only just started. 

_ Focus. Focus. Focus. Focus.  _ He repeated it to himself like a mantra, putting all of his attention into the way he was touching her. His own pleasure could wait until much, much later, when a length of time that wasn’t embarrassing had passed. After  _ that,  _ he would allow himself to come, even if it was in his trousers like he heard teenagers did. 

One hand remained on Rey’s breast, thumb swirling gently around her clothed nipple, but the other began a slow and steady descent around her waist, making its way down the ridges of her spine to cup her ass. Giving her a gentle squeeze there, an elated rush of adrenaline ran through his veins, and he grinned as he kissed her. Both of them were trembling, not unlike their first time together, and he smiled at the memory, letting it flood him as they grinded like they actually were young in the driver’s seat of the car. 

They’d waited centuries for this. They’d been through so much pain, death, and suffering, it was almost incomprehensible. And yet, he found he wouldn’t change a second of it if it meant it wouldn’t lead to  _ this.  _ Neither of them had undressed beyond the unbuttoning of Rey’s blouse, but this was exactly the sort of thing he never wanted to give up. The little touches, the soft tender kisses all over their faces and necks, the feeling of silky fabric in his hands, and the occasional brush of metal against his skin as his fingers bumped the locket she still wore around her neck. It was all those little things that made everything, even the worst, darkest moments of his life, worth it. 

After a while, Rey began to grind against him faster, breaking the kiss to swear obscenely enough he was sure they’d be damned by he hand of god himself in seconds, but somehow they managed to avoid damnation. Perhaps there was something holy in the way their foreheads pressed together, lips close but not touching as they built one another toward what both hoped would be a shared climax. His breathing was shaky as the friction between them grew more intense, and he was certain he’d be coming in seconds. All it would take was the right word, the right sound, the right action from her, and he’d be falling over the edge. 

But he didn’t want to fall over it alone, and with a low growl the hand on her breasts moved the fabric of her brassiere out of the way, giving himself access to the skin beneath before he shifted her in his lap, kissing her exposed chest as she moaned softly beneath him. The sound of that alone nearly sent his self control spiraling, but he kept it in check just long enough to take her nipple into his mouth, grazing it with his teeth before running his tongue over the pebbled skin. Just a few seconds of him doing that was all it took for her to warn him she was getting close, and he only continued to do exactly what he was doing with more enthusiasm, making her come apart in his arms as she fisted his hair tightly enough to cause him pain. 

He could feel her coming on top of him, felt the dampness seeping through her underwear onto his trousers, and that sent him tumbling over the edge himself shortly after. Ben came in his pants as he gasped her name, pressing his forehead into the center of her chest as he came apart beneath her, and held onto the woman he loved for dear life as they both worked each other through their highs. 

It almost felt like they were floating that way forever, but all things must eventually come to an end, and this moment did when he noticed the rain had stopped. The only thing shielding them from view of any and all oncoming traffic was the immense volume of raindrops still coating their car; raindrops which would evaporate with the coming out of the sun as the storm clouds dissipated in the California sky. 

A nervous laugh left him, then he kissed her one last time, pressing his lips to hers as the sounds of the thunderstorm that had enveloped them faded away into the distance. She was so warm in his arms, and he’d nearly forgotten about the chill in the air outside until she shifted away from him, crawling back into her seat in the passenger side with a coy grin and a hand resting casually on his thigh. “That was amazing,” she breathed, her chest still heaving from how hard she was panting as she leaned back in the seat. “But we really have to stop doing it, or we won’t make it to Los Angeles before the end of the century. 

“It’s a good thing we have until the end of the century, then.” A smirk had tilted his lips, earning him a smack to the shoulder from his partner as she groaned at the reminder. 

Still, she managed to giggle as she turned her gaze away from him, and toward the road ahead. “Tell you what, let’s go home, and you can do that as often as you want, once an hour if you wish,” she said as she buttoned up her blouse, and tucked it back into her skirt. 

“Don’t pretend you don’t want it to,” he teased, but he restarted the car, and put them in drive, bringing them back out onto the highway with a warm, fuzzy feeling bubbling in his stomach as they drove beneath the sun. 

*

Somehow, they made it to Los Angeles intact. How they weathered the drive whilst keeping their hands off of each other, he had no idea, but eventually they were driving past palm trees and buildings larger than any she’d ever seen save for New York City and Chicago. He felt his jaw drop at some point, but he couldn’t lose his focus now, they had to find a place in that city to call their home, and so that was exactly what he set his mind to. He could admire the city of angels properly later. 

Over the next few days, he and Rey continued to live in hotels while they searched for the home they’d call theirs. Each night was spent in a haze, both of them almost high on the other and the lights surrounding them each night. In spite of the depression, the part of the city they were in seemed  _ alive, _ and its soul reflected right back in them as they spent their nights making the people in the room adjacent wish they were dead. 

After four days in a hotel near Beverly Hills, they finally found a home near the mountains beneath the Hollywood sign, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. According to pictures, it was two stories, with decently sized windows that would light their evenings with a sunset glow as the daytime star trekked steadily westward. The interior was open and inviting, and everything they’d ever wanted in a first home. 

But before they saw their new home, they decided to see something else, first. On the drive up to the new house, the keys in their hands and their papers signed, both of them found their breath caught in their chest as they saw the new ocean for the first time. All their lives, for a thousand years, they’d been near or on the Atlantic. It and it’s peaceful, lazy waves on the European and American coasts had been all they knew, but now… 

The waves of the Pacific lapped a bit more violently at the shores of America’s west coast, white sea foam cresting the tops of each one as it made its way toward the golden sand. Vivid memories of Portugal filled his mind, making him remember the time they’d fallen over one another in the waves near Ahch To, rendering each other soaking wet as they laughed together as proper friends. Looking at this beach now, he could see that so clearly, except instead of just staring down at her, he could kiss her if he wanted to, and he couldn’t wait for the temperature to get warm enough for him to be able to do it.

As they drove past it, Ben found himself grinning like a Cheshire cat at Rey, taking her hand in his as they drove the remaining distance up to their new house. “This is it,” he whispered, his voice so low he couldn’t even tell if she’d  _ heard  _ it. “We’re finally home.”

All she gave him in response was a kiss to his cheek, right near the corner of his mouth, teasing the promise of a kiss that had yet to come when they got home. It felt like the sun, though it had started to set, shone a little brighter from how the contact made him feel. One thousand years of pain were forgotten in a single touch, and the next thousand were sprawled out ahead of him like an open road. The next millennium of his life wouldn’t hold pain, but joy instead, and it was all going to start with this house in the mountains. 

They finally parked their car in the driveway of their new home ten minutes after seeing the Pacific Ocean for the first time, and Ben clutched the keys in his hand excitedly as he hopped out of the vehicle. Rey wasn’t far behind him, both of them running eagerly to meet the other at the front of the car before wrapping one another up in a warm embrace. Giddy laughter filled the air as he picked her up off the ground, holding her tight against him as he spun her around in a circle. 

Finally it was here, the moment they’d really, truly start their life together. It was a moment eight hundred years in the making since he’d first suggested they stayed together on an English hill, and it was finally here. Smiles parted their lips, spreading wide across their faces as they reached out their hands, and laced their fingers together, staring up at the rosy-hued paint that covered the exterior of the house, then down to the white door frame that surrounded their new front door.

Ben gripped the keys tight in the hand that wasn’t holding Rey’s, and squeezed hers with the other. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she replied, then she took the first step forward, and he followed suit, both of them walking at a pace that attempted to be leisurely, but quickly became a sprint as shrieks of excitement pierced the air. 

Both of them were panting as they approached the door, and he let go of her hand to put the key into the lock. His hands were shaking slightly as he moved, feeling his partner’s eyes on him the whole time as he turned the key, then he gripped the knob in his hand, savoring the moment before he finally pushed it open, and stepped into the house. 

The first thing that hit him was the smell of fresh paint. Then the sight of the house filled his vision as he walked in, retaking Rey’s hand to lead her inside. Everywhere he looked a pale pink paint covered the walls, and large, velvet looking curtains were spread open over large windows, allowing the sun to shine down on furniture of complementary colors to the walls. 

At some point, he must’ve stopped walking inside, and just stood there holding her hand, but he didn’t know when that was. All he knew was that it was now official, and the house was absolutely perfect. 

There always came a moment when one knew something was just  _ right.  _ Moments like finding out what they want to do for a career, knowing what they finally wanted to dedicate their life to, or the moment they met their soulmate, when they knew that the person standing before them was the one they wanted to love forever. Ben had felt that at some point with Rey, and he felt that feeling again when he stood in their house for the first time. 

Even though this place would belong to them for only ten years at most, it was meant to be  _ theirs.  _ It was a stroke of fate itself, and he knew every memory they made within its walls would be one that stayed with him through their second millennium. 

A breathless laugh escaped him as he led her further into the house, walking into an open room near the staircase that lead to the second floor, and observing the way the light fell on a black, shiny grand piano on the far side of the room. At the moment, the instrument was closed, but he had visions already of playing it. He’d learned some songs throughout his many, many years. Something needed to occupy the time he had in the twenties, after all. Perhaps he could play for Rey, create their first memory in the house— _ yes.  _

An idea popped into his head, and Ben grinned as he approached the piano, letting go of Rey’s hand to open up the black cover over the keys. “It’s perfect, isn’t it?” he asked, his gaze still on the white keys that begged him to put his hands on them. 

She looked at him with mild confusion. “The house or the piano?”

A light chuckle. “Both, if I’m being honest,” he replied, then he sat down on the bench in front of it. 

“Can you play?”

“Yeah, I learned how when we were separated. Do you?”

She shook her head, putting a hand on the piano, and letting her fingertips glide along the instrument as she approached, and sat down beside him. “I never did. I once tried my hand at the harp when I was in Venice. My friend Amilyn was a master at it.” A sad smile grew on her face at the memory of another ghost, then she leaned toward him, resting a hand on his shoulder as she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “But no, I can’t play music.”

“You can sing, though.”

A blush rose to her cheeks. “No, I really can’t.”

“I heard you outside Maz’s speakeasy back in 1921, you have a lovely voice,” he assured her, recalling the cadence of a nightingale that had haunted his dreams ever since. “You sang with me, remember? We sang—“

“ _ I Can’t Believe that you’re in Love with me, _ ” she finished for him, then she reached up to cup his jaw. “If only we’d known.”

“We know now.” He rested a hand over hers, then leaned in for a brief, but heart rate increasing kiss. “And now I know what to play.”

“You any good?” She watched him closely as he let his fingers drift over the keys, resting a few of them casually, and allowing rich, musical notes to fill the open space. 

Ben laughed nervously. “We’re about to find out,” he replied, then he launched into the song, memories of dancing and singing gayly through the streets of New York filling his mind as the chords of their song filled their first home. 

Beside him, Rey began to quietly sing the lyrics, practically whispering them into his ear as he grinned from ear to ear, swearing there had never been a more perfect moment in his life than this. Nothing could beat his heart soaring high above his head as jazz filled the place he belonged while the love of his life sat by his side singing like some sort of angel. Well, maybe making love to her could beat it, but this was right behind that, he was sure. 

At some point, he joined her, both of them smiling at the other as they sang and laughed their way through the song, giggling when Ben missed a note, and replaced several lyrics with swear words—the f word had never been so on key—as he struggled to get back on track. Eventually, they managed to finish the song, and he shook his head as tears leaked out of Rey’s eyes from how hard she was laughing. His own rolled in his skull, almost hard enough he was certain they’d pop out, and he took her hand in his as he attempted to cease her laughter. 

“Rey, it’s not that funny.” The fact that he was giggling himself, though, certainly didn’t make that convincing. 

“It’s hilarious.”

“Rey.”

She looked up at him then, her eyes still wet with delighted tears as she let go of his hand to wrap her arms around his shoulders, and pull him into a short, sweet kiss. “Ben, that was perfect.”

“Really?”

“You missing that note made this completely unforgettable.” She kissed his forehead. “And I know as long as I live, I’m never gonna forget it. Ever, not even for a second.”

His breath left him in a rush. “I really, really love you. You know that right?”

The woman holding him kissed him full on the mouth, and he felt a hand drift up into his hair, combing its way through the wavy tresses as her lips caressed his. Adrenaline flooded his veins, and his body reacted accordingly, his arms wrapping around her waist as he returned her kiss with fervor. Though they’d had sex in their last hotel room earlier, he could already feel his cock growing hard against his trousers. 

He smiled into the kiss as he gripped the fabric of her pretty, blue dress in his hand, realizing there was something else they could do to commemorate the occasion. The house needed a christening, but the one he had in mind would have a priest banishing him straight to hell in an instant. Luckily for him, he was already in an eternal purgatory, but it would seem that the in between place was actually some sort of paradise if it had brought him here. 

Breaking away from her for an agonizing few seconds, Ben let go of her waist to put his hands on her face. “Why don’t we make this house properly  _ ours _ ?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean let me take you in my arms, put you on this piano, and then put my hands on you,” he said, pressing a kiss to the tip of her nose. “Give our new house a proper christening.”

Her breath left her in a rush, and she nodded eagerly, kissing him with a ferocity that had him seeing dots in his vision even as she pulled away. “I’d like that. Let’s make it  _ ours _ .”

With how well they thought in sync, it amazed him that they’d ever spent time fighting one another, and he felt as if his whole body were on fire as they stood up from the bench. No more words were said as he wrapped his arms around her, and lifted her from the ground. Rey responded by wrapping her legs around his waist, and threading her fingers through the waves of his hair as she smiled warmly at him. If he weren’t so focused on making her come apart on that piano, he probably would’ve lost himself in her just because she  _ looked  _ at him like that. 

Somehow he made it to the other side of the piano, and set her down on the black surface, staring down at her flushed cheeks and kiss swollen lips as her hooded eyes pondered just what he was going to do to her on the instrument. Absentmindedly, he reached up a hand, running his thumb over the skin of her lower lip as he thought through his next move. So many words threatened to spill from him as his hand wandered down to the fabric of her dress, and he allowed the other one to join it, both of them gliding down the blue until they reached her thighs. 

He paused then, wanting to take his time with this, to properly take every second of it and commit it to memory. Her breath ghosted over his lips, causing goosebumps to form on his skin beneath his clothes, and that spurred him to move. The woman in front of him gasped softly as he took the fabric forcefully in his hands, and began to move it slowly up the length of her thighs. She trembled slightly beneath him, and he watched her eyes fill with curiosity as he bunches up her skirt until he could see the fabric covering her apex. 

“Can I tear  _ these _ stockings?” he asked, leaning forward to whisper the question in her ear as she laughed, then lifted her ass from the piano, and removed both her stockings and underwear without answering him verbally. Apparently this pair of stockings mattered to her, too. 

He shook his head as he reached up to caress her cheek. “Tease.” 

Her response was to pull him in for another kiss, one which allowed him to feel her smiling as their lips parted and came together. The kiss quickly found rhythm, but Ben had set her down on this piano for a different purpose than just that, and while he was perfectly content to just kiss her forever, the house deserved more than that to celebrate its becoming theirs. Though he didn’t break it, he did place a hand back on one of her thighs, allowing the other to sweep back into her hair as he began to glide the first one over her skin. 

Rey hummed softly into the kiss as his fingers pushed her skirt just a little further up on their approach, then she shivered, her whole body seeming to vibrate for a second as his thumb found her clit. His other fingers gripped her hip to hold her in place as she bucked up a little to meet him, nearly making him lose focus on the kiss as he rubbed circles on the bundle of nerves, causing her control on his lips to wobble, and allowing him to take charge. 

“Is this what you had in mind when I said christening?” he asked quietly, his voice lower than he thought it had ever been. 

Laughter parted her lips as his began to make their way onto her neck, sucking a mark into the skin there that he knew would heal within minutes, but wished beyond anything would stain her skin and leave a reminder of him there for days. “Not quite,” she replied, her voice coming out in a breathless gasp. “But I don’t mind it.”

“Yeah?” He pulled off of her neck, leaving a kiss over the fresh, red and purple mark he’d left in her skin. Already, it had started to fade, making him wish that their stupid, immortal biology didn’t register this as an injury that needed healing. “You don’t?”

“Ben, shut up and put your fucking fingers inside of me…” She was panting as she spoke, causing him to pull away as shock filled his expression. “ _ Please. _ ”

“If you insist,” he replied, then he adjusted his hands, removing his fingers from her hip as his thumb continued its ministrations on her clit. 

Swearing under her breath, Rey tilted her head back to allow him better access to her neck as he slipped a finger in her entrance, nearly trembling himself when he realized how wet she was because of him. They’d barely even done anything terribly arrouding and already both of them were complete, utter messes. 

He kept having to tell himself to focus, making him think of the week before when they’d gotten one another off in the driver’s seat of their car. It had been a struggle to think about what he was doing then, and it was even harder now. She wasn’t even touching him yet, but just hearing the little noises she was making under his touch had him growing harder by the second as he began to pump his fingers in and out of her. 

With a tiny gasp, Rey arched into him as he hit just the right spot, and he almost winced from how tightly she gripped his hair, laughing against her neck instead as he brought his kisses further down onto her collar bone to leave a mark there. Much to his disappointment, though he already knew what had happened, the one he’d left on her neck had already healed. 

Damn their immortality, damn it all to hell. 

“Ben, go faster,” she commanded him, and he exhaled sharply into her skin before pulling away, and watched as her features contorted with pleasure as he picked up the pace of his fingers. “ _ Fuck _ , that’s perfect.”

“You think?”

“Don’t ever stop,” she told him, then before he could get another word in, she pulled him in for another searing kiss that had not only his head, but the whole world spinning. 

He kissed her as though it would be the last time he would ever get to do so, spurred on by the intensity of her responses to his every touch. What he gave he got right back in return, and for a while the two of them played a back and forth over who was in charge of the kiss. Despite him literally being the one with two fingers inside her cunt, she managed to lead them most of the time, sweeping her tongue along the line of his lower lip as her nails grazed along his scalp, sending chills down his spine from the feeling. 

If it were possible, and he had no doubt it was, he was certain he’d be able to come just from how thoroughly he was being kissed alone. 

Her kisses only diminished in quality when he could tell she was getting close, and even then he still felt as if his whole body was alive with electricity. He was made of lightning itself when she kissed him, even when she did so sloppily, her kisses growing brief as she came up to gasp from the feelings he brought her. At some point, his name tumbled loosely from her lips, making him aware that within seconds, she’d be falling over the edge. 

Wanting to see the look on her face when she came, Ben pulled away, increasing his pace further as she quivered in his arms, her eyes shut as she leaned her head back, and her swears echoed off the walls.  _ What a way to find out their new house had great acoustics,  _ he pondered to himself as he continued stroking her to orgasm, waiting patiently for the moment he would feel her fluttering around him as she came. 

Some incoherent phrase fell from her lips, then he finally felt it, and he watched her entire face flush pink, the color washing down over her collar bone and the tops of her breasts as a loud moan escaped her. His own breath left him shakily as he continued his ministrations through it all, reducing Rey—who was one of the strongest fighters he’d ever seen, a fierce warrior who was hell herself with a sword—to a mumbling mess on that piano. 

It wasn’t until she was starting to breathe normally that he removed his hand completely, and stood there before her for a moment just watching as she breathed hard. Whatever thoughts were running through her head, he couldn’t decipher them, but he figured it out quickly enough as she kissed him again, tugging softly on his hair to pull him in as she thanked him without words. 

She was smiling just as much as he was as she gave him a slow, gentle kiss, making him realize once more how much of a fool he’d been to hide his feelings from her. How he’d ever been afraid of rejection when it was this clear she felt the same was beyond him. 

Whatever had happened, though, was now in the past, and it would do him no good to dwell on it any further than he already had. As he pulled away from the kiss, he tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, watching the fading daylight as it seemed to glow from her face as he sighed happily. “Welcome home, Rey.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “Welcome home, Ben.”


	25. Los Angeles, 1937 CE

**_Six years later…_ **

Rey’s fingers drifted lazily over the surface of the bath water, watching as it rippled beneath her skin while warm little waves lapped at her collar bone. Contentment swelled within her as she moaned softly, and leaned her head back against Ben’s broad chest, reveling in the deep, rumbling laughter that shook her whole body as his arms wrapped tightly around her chest. 

A hand rubbed at her shoulder as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, then she tilted it back, looking up into his eyes as she grinned, feeling happier than she’d felt in a long time. 

The last six years had been a whirlwind of pure bliss. Their life together in Los Angeles was full of enough joy to wipe away a thousand years of darkness. They’d had six years of going out to see movies together, attending parties with their neighbors as a couple, dining by the water’s edge, and spending days lazing in the sun. 

The beaches of Southern California had become their favorite places to visit, and the ocean had long since washed away the pain of all the years before. 

“This is nice,” Ben whispered as he leaned down to kiss her, capturing his partner’s lips in a short, but sweet kiss before she righted herself, and resumed leading her head back against his chest. “We should do this more often.”

Rey laughed. “This is the second time this week!” 

“You say that like its a bad thing,” he replied, then he shifted his hand, and she shivered in spite of the warm bath water as his thumb drifted casually over her nipple. “I know I tell you this everyday, but… Rey this is the happiest I’ve ever been.”

Another contented hum escaped her, and she groaned as his other hand began to venture lower, the tips of his fingers grazing over the skin of her stomach as they made their way down beneath the surface of the water. “Me too.” She laughed shakily as those fingers found her clit, circling it lazily as she leaned further into him. “But we can't do this right now. We have to actually get clean.”

Ben grumbled unintelligibly, then she felt his chin rest on the crown of her head. “Why?” His voice was almost a whine, which she found oddly charming. “Can’t we just stay here? Forever?”

“Technically, yes, but in reality no,” she said, but didn’t push his hand away as his fingers began to press gently inside of her. “Maz is coming to visit us today, remember?”

“ _ Fuck. _ ” He leaned back against the wall of the tub, taking her with him as a delighted laugh left her mouth. “Are you sure?”

Rey nodded as she rested a hand over his, guiding his fingers at a faster pace as he rubbed at her clit with each time they retreated from her entrance. “We’ve been planning this for six months.”

“Mmm, and she’s staying with us, isn’t she?” 

“Yes, so you better move your hand a bit faster, Hmm?” she asked, then she gasped as he did exactly that, reminding her of the dream she’d had in their shared tent two centuries earlier. They’d been in a position not unlike this, hadn’t they? “If we’re going to do this, we need to be quick.”

This time, it was Ben who shivered behind her, and she felt a kiss land just behind her temple. “God damn it, I love you.”

All Rey managed in response was a soft whimper before Ben’s fingers picked up their pace, and she soon lost herself to the feeling of his hands on her. As the time passed, though, she realized she could stay like this forever. Someday, she didn’t want to be haunted by the idea of moving around all the time. She wanted to be rooted to one spot so they could exist in one another’s space for as long as they wanted without fear of being caught. 

They’d been together for six years now, and every touch of his skin against hers still felt new. She never seemed to tire of having his hands on her, and she suspected she never would. “ _ Fuck, _ ” she breathed as Ben shifted behind her, allowing himself better access as he pressed kisses down the side of her face and onto her neck. 

The new position caused the sensations running through her body to grow more intense, and she moaned softly as the hand caressing her breast moved to the other one, and began to casually circle the hardened nipple he found without even having to look. Her partner knew her body by now. He knew every single inch of her, and yet he still set about exploring her as if for the first time whenever they had sex. 

It was one of many things she loved about him. 

Gasping in his arms, Rey’s hand reached back, and buried itself in the tangles of his wavy, still unbrushed hair, latching onto it as he sucked a mark into her skin. For a moment, she let herself believe it wouldn’t fade away. That bruise was here to stay, to let the world know that someone—that  _ he— _ had put it there. In her mind, it wasn’t going to be leaving her anytime soon. 

If she closed her eyes, she could picture them as mortals, could see them getting injured or sick and caring for one another in the aftermath. She could see them settling down somewhere permanently and getting a dog and a mortgage and exchanging wedding rings at a ceremony witnessed by their dozens of close friends. Rey could envision them developing wrinkles on their skin, and age spots from the sun, and streaks of silver in their hair while their backs slowly forced them to tilt forward. 

Growing old with him was something she wanted dearly, but could never have, and once upon a time, that was a tragedy. But now? Now it was a gift. They had eternity together, and that was something they wouldn’t get as mortals. At last, her eternal life felt like it wasn’t going to be just an endless pit of misery, it felt like it had a purpose, and for once, she didn’t mind it one bit. 

Life was a gift, and she’d been given a bounty of it. 

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the feeling that she was about to come at any second, and her head rolled back onto his shoulder as he pressed a kiss to her jaw. “Ben, I’m gonna come.”

He laughed against her skin, kissing it gently as he sped up his fingers, pumping them in and out of her as she writhed in his arms. “Careful, you’ll spill water everywhere.”

“ _ Fuck  _ the water,” she replied with a gasp, then she cried out unintelligibly as she came, gripping Ben’s hair and the side of the tub as her back arched away from him. “ _ Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck…” _

Ben continued to chuckle as waves of pleasure washed over her, his fingers continuing their work until the last of the spasms had passed, and she finally felt herself coming down from the clouds. Both of them were breathing hard in the aftermath, and as his hand retreated, Rey turned around in the bath water to straddle him as her arms wrapped around his shoulders. 

He looked at her like she held the whole world in her eyes, and even after half a decade, it still made her shiver. “What does that mean?” she asked him quietly. “When you look at me like that?”

“I think we both know the answer to that by now.” He leaned forward to kiss her lips softly as the morning light continued encroaching upon their bath. 

A feeling of being complete filled her as she returned the kiss, then shifted in the water so that she was flush against him. The surface of it lapped against the sides of the tub, sloshing gently around them as Rey began to deepen the kiss. Any concern she had about the minimal time they had left before Maz got there went out the window as the time passed, and the rest of the world became obsolete. 

Of course, time was still passing in the outside world, and soon their kiss was interrupted by the sound of a ringing phone.  _ Their  _ ringing phone. 

Groans left them both as they parted from their kiss, and Rey sat back against the other side of the tub, leaning her head back against the edge as the water suddenly felt lukewarm. “Great,” she breathed, causing Ben to laugh as he leaned forward, and stood up out of the tub, causing her to repeat the word at the view he gave as he stepped out. 

He laughed as he grabbed a towel off a nearby rack, and gave her a wink before leaning over to press a kiss to her forehead. As if of their own accord, her eyes closed into the touch, and she melted against his lips. 

All too soon he retreated, and she sank into the tub as she listened to his footsteps walking away. A few seconds later, she mustered up the will to stand, and followed Ben out of the tub. She dried herself off and grabbed a dressing gown off a hook nearby, shoving her arms through the sleeves as she walked out of their bathroom behind him. 

When she found him, he was in their living room with the towel wrapped around his hips, the phone by the piano they’d christened six years earlier at his ear. A smile parted her lips as she approached him and wrapped her arms around his waist, kissing his jaw as the voice on the other end of the line spoke raspily. 

“Shit, Maz, is there anything we can bring you?” Ben asked, concern furrowing his brow as he gripped the phone a little more tightly. “You sound really sick.”

At this, Rey frowned. “Maz is sick?”

He held up a finger, then he nodded a few times, humming his assent quietly a few times before he sighed, and ran his hand through his hair. “Okay,” he replied, then he cleared his throat. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?” Rey whispered, causing Ben to nod. 

“No, I completely understand, um, feel better, Maz.” A pause. “I will.” Then his cheeks flushed pink. “I… I’ve definitely thought about it… listen, I’ve got to go—I’ll—I’ll see you later.”

He hung up the phone, leaving Rey curious as to just what Maz had said to him on the phone. Still she didn’t say anything to him, she just ran her fingers through his hair, watching him close his eyes as he leaned into her touch. “I guess you heard Maz is sick?”

“Yeah, poor thing.” She walked around, and leaned her head on his shoulder as he wrapped an arm around hers. “Guess that wipes out our plans for the day?”

“Not necessarily.” His thumb began to casually stroke her upper arm. “We can still go to the beach without her. It’s a beautiful day. Warm, sunny, the perfect day to just walk by the water’s edge.” She shivered as his other hand came up to caress her cheek, and he smiled. “It’s been a while since we stepped in the ocean. What do you say?”

“I’d love to,” she replied, kissing him again as she returned his grin. “So much for that bath, hmm?”

Ben laughed. “Yeah, so much for that bath.”

*

An hour later, their car pulled into a parking lot that was already filled to the brim with other cars. The only reason they even got a spot in the first place, she suspected, was that someone else had recently pulled out, and thus they were free to take over that perfect little space that allowed them easy access to the deep blue. Rey’s hand was resting casually out the window as she stared at the ocean from behind the rim of black tinted sunglasses. 

The waves were lapping gently at the shore, nearly approaching the toes of the people sitting beneath the umbrellas that had been set out on the water’s edge. Rey felt a pure sense of glee as she hopped out of the car with only her towel in hand, and shoved her door shut. She barely even waited for Ben to get out behind her before running to the water’s edge, laughing delightedly as she kicked up the sand beneath her feet. 

She only stopped to kick off her shoes near an empty umbrella, then she ran toward the waves, letting the cool water of the Pacific Ocean lap at her feet, and drift up to her calves as she waited for him to catch up. “Walk faster! You’re missing the waves!”

Ben scoffed as he set down their things near the umbrella where she’d discarded her shoes. “It’s not as if we don’t have time!”

“Maybe so, but get in here!” An ecstatic cry left her lips as she stepped further back into the waves, feeling a particularly strong one lap as high as her mid-thigh. “Before the ocean carries me away!”

All he did in response was roll his eyes, then he ran into the ocean with her, but she didn’t let him catch up with her. No, Rey decided she was going to make him pay for how he’d made her wait. Instead of waiting for him at the water’s edge, she began to run backwards, moving as quickly as she could until she was forced to swim. 

The man she loved, however, was quick to catch up, his size giving him an advantage over her. She shrieked as he got closer, then dove beneath the waves, letting the cool water surround her completely, soaking through the floral print of her suit as she cut through the waves that crested overhead. 

Resurfacing a few seconds later, she searched the surface of the water for signs of Ben, but found none. Concern set in as she did a full rotation, and still didn’t catch hide nor hair of him. Logically, she knew he couldn’t drown, but there was a tiny sliver of fear that sunk in her gut, promising her that somehow, danger lurked on the horizon. 

It was silly, wasn’t it? Things were fine, Ben was probably just holding his breath for longer than he needed to and hunting for her beneath the surface of the sea, but as Rey looked west toward the horizon, that bad feeling in the pit of her stomach only grew stronger. She’d had bad feelings such as this multiple times, the sort that promised something bad was coming in the future. Though she was no psychic and certainly didn’t believe in fortune tellers and miracles, each and every time she got that feeling, something terrible always happened not terribly long after. 

Everything was so perfect right then, though, that she managed to convince herself it was just her imagination. Good things hadn’t happened to her before this decade—or rather, when they had they’d been few and far between—and she was logically mistrustful of any bliss she was allowed to experience. 

Historically, happiness had always come with a price. 

Ben suddenly burst forth from the water in front of her, his arms wrapping around her waist as he lifted her above the waves, causing her to shriek joyously while he spun her around. “Oh, you bastard!”

“I’ll have you know I was born in wedlock,” Ben informed her, earning himself a light smack to the cheek before he lowered her to the ground, but kept his arms wrapped around her. 

They breathed hard for a moment, allowing themselves time to calm down from the thrill of the chase they’d just engaged in. When Rey looked back at the shore, she laughed when she realized just how far from their things they’d drifted, then shook her head as she turned her gaze back on Ben. “What a mess.”

“If this is a mess, then I never want to be clean again.”

“Neither do I.” More laughter escaped them both as they jumped into a wave, and Rey wrapped her legs around his hips. “I love this. Being here with you? I never want it to end.”

“It won’t,” he whispered, then he brushed a strand of hair from her face as he rested his forehead against hers. “I’m yours, forever, and if I can help it, I’m never gonna leave you. You got that? I’m never ever gonna leave you.”

That bad feeling fluttered briefly in the pit of her stomach again, then she shook her head, and buried her fingers in Ben’s hair as she kissed him, letting the waves come in around them as they kissed in the glittering blue. 

They were both soaking wet, but his hair was still soft in her fingers, the waves tragically smoothed out by water, but still mesmerizing to her all the same. Ben’s hands slowly wandered over the expanse of her waist, drifting gently over the fabric of her suit as he kissed her, holding her tightly against him. 

Normally public displays of affection were frowned upon—even after nine hundred years of progress—but here, hidden in the waves, she was allowed to kiss him properly as if none of it mattered. To her, it didn’t, but they certainly wouldn’t do well for themselves if they drew too much attention. If they stayed low, they stayed in one place longer, and she wasn’t ready to give up the paradise they’d found in Hollywood yet. 

His lips tasted like salt this time, like he was made of the ocean itself, a child of Poseidon or Neptune, or whatever they called the god of the sea back in the day. The taste was one that usually made her want to spit whatever was in her mouth out, but when it was on him, she found she rather enjoyed it. 

Ben smelled like the sea, and she breathed him in as she pulled away, stroking his hair as he looked up at her the same way he had for centuries now. If she’d only known what it had meant sooner, they probably could’ve spared themselves a lot more pain, but… she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret how they finally  _ did  _ come together. 

“Let’s stay here for a while,” she said after a while. “After the sun goes down and everyone’s gone?” Her hands dropped down to rest over his pectoral muscles, feeling the pounding of his heart within his chest through the swim tank he wore as she looked into those dark brown eyes. “I want us to have this whole beach to ourselves.” 

He was smirking at her as he spun them slowly through the water. “I’d like that.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Just you, me, and the stars? Sounds perfect.”

“But for now…” She unlatched herself from him, and began swimming back toward their things. “ _ Catch me.” _ Then she dove beneath the waves, igniting the hunt between them anew as she swam back toward the shore. 

*

Several hours later, they lay huddled on top of their blankets and towels. Rey’s hand was resting casually on Ben’s chest, overlain by one of his own as one of her legs tangled itself between his, and they stared up at the stars. A soft breeze blew past them, drying their hair and blowing away the water droplets that covered their bodies. 

As time passed, she felt herself begin to shiver slightly, and without even having to say a word, he covered her up with one of their blankets, allowing warmth to spread between them both as they laid beneath the sparkling sky. 

It was rather cool outside for a July night, but with him by her side, she hardly even noticed. “We should’ve done this a long time ago.”

He nodded his assent, then she watched his features contort from confusion as she glanced up. “Why haven’t we?”

“We got caught up in the flow of things. Got so lost in pretending to be mortal, I think we forgot we don’t have to conform to their rules all the time.” 

Rey laughed. “I guess so.” She rolled on top of him, her entire body pressing against the warmth of his as she looked down at his face. In the moonlight, he looked more blue than anything else, but paired with the sound of waves lapping at the sand in the background, she thought that it was absolutely perfect. “You think we’ll be doing this more often, then?”

“If we have to live forever, we might as well take advantage of it.” One of his hands came up, caressing the base of her skull as he locked eyes with her. “But by this… did you just mean lying here on the beach counting the stars, or…?”

“I meant whatever you want.” Her arms crossed over his chest, and she propped up her head on her forearms as she watched him. “After all the years we wasted? All I care about is I’m with you.”

Though she knew he wasn’t cold, the man beneath her was trembling, and she stared at him in confusion, running her thumb over the fabric of his shirt in time with the crashing of an approaching wave. Before she could ask him if he was okay, Ben let out a tiny chuckle. “I was just thinking about things mortals do.”

“Like what?”

“We’ve already bought a home together.”

“Technically we signed a lease.”

“But we moved in together, and that’s something most people in our situation do when they’re… what’s the modern term for courting?” 

Rey rolled her eyes as she giggled at him. He knew damn well what they called it these days. “Dating, Ben, they call it dating now.” She pressed a kiss to the left side of his chest. “Old man.”

“You’re just as old as I am.”

“You were saying?”

He swallowed suddenly, sounding rather nervous as he pulled her a little closer against him. “I just… I see people sometimes and—and I know their lives aren’t ones we’ll ever have, but…” Another pause, then he shook his head. “Forget it, it’s ridiculous.”

“What is?”

Suddenly, he refused to look at her. “It’s nothing.”

“Ben…” She reached a hand up, and cupped his chin. “It’s not nothing. Tell me. If there’s something you want, I don’t care how stupid it is.”

“It’s more pointless than anything,” he said, then he wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her face closer to his so that he could press his forehead to hers. “Can you please just forget I said anything?”

Frowning, Rey looked between his eyes, which almost appeared black in the blue light of the moon, but she nodded. Whatever he was thinking, he’d tell her when he was ready, she was sure of it. “Okay, but you better make me forget,” she told him, then she watched the moonlight reflect off his teeth as he grinned like the Cheshire cat. 

“Believe me, I will,” he replied, then the hand at the base of her skull pulled her the rest of the way to him, and before she could think, he was kissing her softly. 

Each kiss seemed perfectly time with the rising and falling of the waves approaching the shore behind them. She could hear the water rushing in her ears, could sense its every advance and retreat as Ben’s lips caressed hers in a soothing rhythm. Already, she’d forgotten her worry over whatever it was he’d been about to say, and he’d done that to her just through a simple, tender kiss. 

With him, though, gentle kisses like that tended to become more than just something soft and sweet. His arms flexed around her, eliciting a tiny moan from her mouth as he rolled them over so that she was on her back, and he was pressing her into the blankets they’d lain over the sand. 

Thrills rushed up and down her spine as his hands quickly shifted so that they were skirting up along the fabric of her swimsuit, and heading straight toward the straps on her shoulders. They’d done this a million times by now, but somehow he still managed to tremble for a moment every single time as if it was their first. 

Once upon a time, she’d wondered if such things with him could ever grow old, and she was quickly finding out that no, they would never. Each experience she shared with Ben was as ageless, as timeless as they were. 

As his hands slid her suit down her shoulders, she found that she wasn’t any different. She was shaking, too, and maybe the chill in the air contributed, but it wasn’t the sole thing responsible. Still, it made her think of six years earlier during that frigid Chicago winter when they’d actually done this for the first time. They’d shaken then and they were shaking now, only this time instead of a fire crackling in their ears, it was the waves of the ocean. 

Ben finally removed her straps from her shoulders, pulling back so that she could peel the evil, damp fabric the rest of the way from her body. As Rey began sliding her suit down her chest, she watched as he sat back on his knees, and removed his shirt, making her certain the cold wasn’t the only thing causing her nipples to pebble the minute the suit was free from her body. 

Certain she’d regret the consequences later, Rey tossed the suit aside the minute she slid her feet out of it, and let it flop down in the nearby sand. Her partner laughed as he watched, but then quickly did the same with his shirt before working on the fastenings on his trousers. 

Clutching a blanket to her chest, she grinned as she watched him strip off his remaining clothing, and waited until he was finished before she laid back against the soft fabrics beneath her once more. It was then that she allowed herself the chance to properly oggle him, watching how the moonlight seemed to almost glow off his pale skin. It should’ve made him look like some frightening creature straight out of  _ Dracula _ , but it only served to make her want him more. 

_ Especially when paired with that sweet, vulnerable look in his eyes.  _

“Come here,” she told him, taking his hand in hers. There was a hesitant pause, then mischief made itself known in his eyes as he allowed her to pull him down so that he was on top of her once more. 

As he settled over her, she adjusted the blanket to cover him as well, shielding them both from the chill on the breeze as the ocean creating it continued its background roar. Rey wrapped her arms around his neck as she pulled him back into their kiss from a minute earlier, and hummed against him when she felt his hands begin to glide up her waist. 

Ben’s response to the soft little noise she made was to begin to leave kisses along the sides of her face, drifting down to the column of her neck. These days, he didn’t waste time stopping there, he kept going until his lips were hovering over the line of her collarbone. She whispered his name breathlessly as he kissed her there, feeling as if the tingling sensation from the kiss melted right down to her bones as he continued descending even further. 

Her hands fisted tightly in his hair as his lips brushed the top of one of her breasts. She could feel his breathing shaking in time with hers as it ghosted over her goose-bump covered flesh, causing her to gasp as he moved again, covering her nipple with his mouth. Something unintelligible left hers in response, lost beneath the sound of the waves as Ben’s tongue reached out to swirl around it. 

The sound she made in response was lost to the ocean and the breeze, but she knew somehow he’d heard it by the smirk she watched develop on his face. Without saying a word, he released her nipple from his mouth, and began pressing kisses around the other, replacing his mouth with his hand on the one he’d just abandoned. 

When he took her other nipple into his mouth, though, she thought she might be able to come from just that alone. She actually had, once, just a year after they’d moved into their home in the hills. He’d laid her down on the sofa in their living room—neither of them had been able to wait until they reached their bedroom—and removed her blouse, muttering filthy things as he pressed kisses on the skin he’d exposed until she’d come embarrassingly hard just from the things he’d said. 

How she’d ever managed centuries of hiding her feelings for him, she wasn’t sure. Now that Ben knew how much she loved him, life was pure and utter bliss. 

“Mmm, Ben I need—“ Rey gasped as he grazed her nipple with his teeth, causing her to realize just how wet she was getting from what he was doing to her breasts alone. “I need you inside me.”

“So impatient,” he said quietly, pressing a kiss to the center of her chest. “But I’d love to.” 

With that, he shifted over her, and she wrapped a leg around his hips, hooking her heel around one of this thighs as he lined up his cock with her entrance. It had taken them a little while to get it right, but neither of them needed their hands anymore for guidance. It came naturally to them by now, and she shivered as she felt his tip press against her, causing her to swear as he slowly pushed himself inside. 

“ _ Ben, _ ” she whispered, feeling like her whole body was buzzing with electricity as he slowly sheathed himself within her. Tiny noises of pleasure escaped his parted lips, and she felt damp strands of his hair tickle her forehead as he pressed in further until they reached the limit of their comfort, and he stopped. 

Both of them were breathing heavily, exhales ghosting over one another’s lips as they adjusted to one another. A tiny smile tilted the corners of her mouth as she reveled in the feeling of being filled by him. When they were joined like this, she felt like that missing piece of her that she’d searched for over centuries was returned, and she was complete. Sure, she could survive without him, but life without Ben was certainly far less preferable than life with him. 

Survival wasn’t living, anyway. 

His whole body shuddered as he pulled back, then thrusted into her again, causing them both to groan at the feeling as he hit a spot deep inside of her she’d rarely been able to reach. This time, though, he didn’t freeze after he reached that unspoken limit they’d set; this time he began to move, allowing her to properly feel the friction of his cock against her— _ inside _ her—as he began to fuck her at a gentle pace. 

That night, Ben almost seemed to move in time with the rolling of the ocean waves, but perhaps just a touch faster than the white-cresting water. As he began increasing their pace, she cupped the base of his skull with one hand, and pulled him down to kiss her. They’d only just begun, but already she felt as if she were out of breath, causing their kisses to become frenzied, fleeting, needy things that drove them both wild. 

He began to move faster as she kissed him, allowing her other hand to caress his upper back as he thrust into her a little more deeply. She gasped into one of their kisses in response, slowly raking the nails of that first hand down the blade of his shoulder as he moaned against her. 

They were going to be the death of one another, weren’t they?

“I think you may have— _ fuck— _ I think you may have drawn blood,” Ben muttered, causing her to giggle before he kissed her again, silencing whatever clever retort he thought she was going to give him. Sure enough, though, she could feel wet crimson beneath her fingertips as she slid them back up toward his shoulder, but there was no wound. He’d already healed from the slight injury she’d inflicted upon him. 

Both of them forgot the injury rather quickly as she began to meet him thrust for thrust, wanting to be sure she joined him when he tumbled over the edge, and came inside of her. It didn’t sound like Ben was close yet—another noise she’d grown familiar with over the last half-decade they’d spent together—but she still wanted to be sure they came together. Sex with him was consistently wonderful, but it was always a tiny bit better when they shared their orgasm, when she could hear him shouting her name when she finally reached her peak. 

“Ben,” she whispered, breaking their kiss as they continued their ministrations against one another. “Put your hands on me.”

All he gave her in response was a quick nod, then he propped himself up on one arm, kissing her gently as the other reached down between them, and she felt his thumb begin to rub her clit. The sensation it brought to her nearly had her eyes rolling back in her head, and her back arched as she moaned his name, praying he heard it over the sounds of the Pacific’s chorus of waves. 

Going by the chuckle she heard a second later, he definitely had. 

_ Asshole,  _ she thought to herself, but she didn’t have time to think of any other insults as his thumb began to create a blissful friction against her clit, and she lost herself to the feeling of his touches. 

All she could feel was the warmth of his hands, his cock, and his lips as they all worked to make her slowly come apart in the cool evening air. The breeze blowing past them was gentle, not nearly enough to concern her with the thought of blowing away, and only seemed to add to the serenity of the whole thing as it wandered past, causing them both to shiver in the others arms as they made love on the beach. 

“Rey,” he breathed on a particularly deep thrust that had them both shivering, their names sounding like something holy on each other’s lips. “God damn it…”

There it was, the slight lowering of his voice, the stuttered, gasping moans as he tried to fill his disobedient lungs with air, and the tiny little tremor in his voice that finally gave away the fact that he was now close. Not wanting to fall behind, Rey moved faster against him, clinging tightly to his shoulders as their thrusts increased in speed. In the background, the ocean’s waves seemed to crescendo as they built one another to their climaxes, both crying out unintelligibly as they reached the edge. 

They fell over it just as she’d wanted them to; together. 

Rey wasn’t sure what fell from her lips was a word as she came undone around him, feeling him follow her the second the first spasm made her quiver beneath him. She vaguely registered the sound of him crying out on top of her as they broke their kisses to gasp for air they didn’t completely need. Her eyes and mouth were open wide, allowing her to glimpse the sky above them as Ben buried his face in her neck, and his own cries rumbled against her skin. 

Above them the stars were shining. They weren’t the same white, galactic haze they’d watched by the fire nearly two centuries earlier, and in the city there weren’t as many of them, but she could still pick out a few of the ones that had watched her from the very beginning. As she came around Ben’s cock, they blurred in her vision. Suddenly that haze was back, making her almost dizzy from the combination of sight and feeling, and she closed her eyes as the spasms finally began to cease, and they both slowly regained their ability to breathe. 

When it was over, she glanced up at the stars again, and watched as the sea of twinkling light shone down on the beach. Slowly, the sound of their breathing filtered back into her ears, and Ben shifted above her, his concerned face illuminated by the light of the rising moon as he stared down at her with that  _ look  _ in his eyes. 

She giggled at him. “What?”

“Nothing, just—“ He pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose. “We should do this more often.”

“We’ll get caught.”

“It’ll be worth it,” he promised, and there was so much love in his eyes, that even though his idea defied logic, she believed him. 

“Yeah, you’re right,” she replied breathlessly, then he rolled off of her, and they resumed the position they’d had before. Her head rested on his shoulder while one of her hands rested on his chest, where a sheen of sweat had developed, and now glistened slightly in the pale moonlight. 

“But in all seriousness, tonight was perfect.”

“It was, wasn’t it?”

“I’m not saying I’m glad Maz got sick, but…”

“I was thinking it, too,” she said, then they both shook with laughter as they turned their eyes on each other. “I’m glad we had this. I know we’ve got forever, and we’ll have infinite more days like this, but…” She began tracing circles on the skin of his chest as she spoke. “I don’t think we’ll ever get enough.”

“No, we won’t.” His voice fell quiet, then he looked up and around them, glancing back at the parking lot briefly before he looked at her with a smile on his face. 

Rey felt her features contort with confusion. “What is it?”

“There’s still no one around,” he pointed out, then he gestured to the rest of the beach. “The police haven’t even been on patrol.” One of his hands cupped her chin, and she caught sight of a wicked grin parting his lips. “We could do it again, if you want.”

Snickering quietly, Rey nodded. “You’re insatiable.”

“You love me for it,” he replied, then he pulled her on top of him, kissing her fiercely as they began to tangle themselves within the confines of their flannel blankets, lost in the sand, the wind, and the waves as the stars watched from their perch in the heavens. 


	26. Los Angeles & San Francisco, 1940

They had two more days left in Los Angeles now. It had been nearly ten years since they’d first come to the city, and just the week prior a neighbor had commented that neither of them ever seemed to change. Time had come for them to leave, and though Ben wanted nothing more than to stay and make his permanent home with her, he knew that the time to move on was at hand. 

Their wonderful home in the hills was now packed in boxes, including the furniture. The piano they’d christened their house on had already been shipped ahead of them to San Francisco, just far north enough they hoped no one down here would bother them. Not that he thought anyone would, their neighbors had scarcely ever talked to them over the decade they’d been there, but the distance seemed necessary. They’d certainly gone farther to hide their true identities. 

That morning, though, two days before they left, Ben knew he had to add one more thing to their moving collection. As had become a habit, he woke up in Rey’s arms, feeling her front pressed against her backside as she buried her face in his neck. Her warm breath ghosted over his skin as she slept on peacefully, causing him to smile as he looked out the window at the sea, watching the ocean lap hungrily at the shore. 

Fond memories of the many nights they’d spent on the beach filled his mind, followed shortly after every single thing that had happened to him since they reunited in Chicago. He still shivered when he remembered how it felt to have her hands on him for the first time, or how her voice had sounded when she told him she wanted him that night. 

His favorite of those memories, though, was undoubtedly the first time they’d had sex on the beach. The thrill it had sent through him had been unlike anything he’d experienced in his thousand years, and even though it had taken days to wash the sand completely from every crevice of his body, it had been the most wonderful, intimate thing they’d done up until that point. 

The conversation they’d had that night stuck out to him as well. He’d spoken to her with a nervous, shaky voice, anxious about approaching a topic he still had yet to speak to her about three years later. Hell, Ben _still_ didn't have the courage to bring it up, but he figured he’d at least point himself in the right direction. 

After all, he wanted nothing more than to finally have the guts to get down on one knee and ask Rey to marry him. It had been nine hundred years since they’d first met, and at least five hundred since they’d started falling for each other. The time for him to ask her was long overdue, but he figured he could take it slow. They had all the time in the world, didn’t they? 

Still, he couldn’t wait another century to ask her. He couldn’t keep a secret like that ever again. 

With that in mind, Ben inspected the position they were currently huddled in. If he was going to do this, he had to sneak out and be in and out of the house like nothing had happened. If or when she caught him, he would spill his guts immediately, and he wanted this proposal to go perfectly. They deserved that much after all they’d been through. 

She had one arm casually slung around his waist, and the other was nestled closely to her chest. One of her legs was nudging against his, but not wrapped around it. She was touching him but not clinging to him, which would make his escape that much easier. A smile blossomed on his face as he thought through what he was about to do, resting a hand gently over hers as he channeled calming thoughts. 

This had to be done with a level of stealth he had not bothered to master over the last thousand years. 

He took a moment to run his thumb over the back of her hand, picturing how it would feel to do so with a diamond on her finger. Probably less soft, but the emotional weight of it would fill him with a sense of pride. 

Ben had spent nearly eleven centuries a bachelor. Some might have said he was overdue for marriage at that point. Others—if they knew his situation—might call it trivial and possibly stupid that a man who lived forever would get married. And maybe it was silly, but he still wanted it. He still wanted to feel like a mortal, at least for a little while, and what was more mortal than that? Pledging himself to someone forever even though they’d effectively done that the minute they agreed to finally be together? 

What a mortal thing to do indeed. 

Trying desperately to contain his excitement, he slowly lifted her hand from his body, missing its warmth as he slowly rolled away from her sleeping form. His heart started to race as he sat up in the bed, stretching out his legs over the edge before standing up, and glancing back at Rey. 

_God,_ she looked beautiful even in her sleep, the early morning light hitting her in such a way that it softened her features, making her almost seem to glow as he watched. Sighing quietly, he leaned over, careful with how he distributed his weight as he rested a palm on their mattress for support, then he pressed a kiss to her temple, and headed for their closet. 

That morning he dressed quickly, throwing on a casual suit before he grabbed the car keys, and made his way out the door, shutting it quietly as he tip-toed toward the garage. He wasn’t sure why he was still being so quiet when there wasn’t a need for him to be, but he wagered it had something to do with how nervous he was. 

He’d never loved someone enough to want to marry them, and that scared the hell out of him. 

His fingers were trembling as he started the car, making it feel like his whole body was buzzing with electricity as he made his way down their driveway, and out onto the street. It had been nearly eleven hundred years since he’d come into the world, and he’d never felt more _alive._

There was a shop off sunset boulevard that he had his mind on, one he’d passed almost daily with her on his arm. It almost reminded him of the one in Charleston where he’d bought the locket she still wore around her neck—except for days they went to the beach—and the watch he was now using to keep the time. 

Ben turned onto the road that led into town, finding the sun shone a little more brightly that morning. Every nerve in his body was alight with activity, and if he were being honest, he was a hazard to anyone else on that road, but this was a moment an entire millennium in the making. 

His foot pressed further onto the accelerator as he drove by the ocean, remembering how he’d felt nine years earlier when he’d seen it for the first time. That morning it was sparkling in the light of the sun, conjuring the sound of her laughter as they splashed in the waves to the forefront of his mind as he drove on by it. 

By the time he finally came by the shop, Ben felt like a stick of dynamite ready to explode. He balled his hands into fists in his pockets as he walked down the streets past other early morning commuters, feeling as if he was holding his breath even though he was breathing as he finally came upon the shop, staring at the big, golden lettering declaring its name, The Kessel Run. 

Taking in another deep breath, he approached the wooden door, and reached out for the knob, feeling as if the eyes of the whole world were on him as he pushed it open. The door revealed the shop with the sound of a bell ringing to announce his arrival, causing Ben—who was already on edge—to wince. 

“I’ll be out in a second!” a voice shouted from the back of the shop, and suddenly the weight of what he was about to do hit him anew. 

Did he have the courage to do this? What if Rey thought it was a dumb idea? He knew she loved him, but what if they faced some other problem further down the line that resulted in them choosing to separate again? What if she didn’t want to be married and he just made their perfect relationship suddenly awkward by dropping to one knee?

Maybe he could go through with getting a ring, but asking her… was he ready for it? Was he _really_ ready for it?

Before he could make up his mind fully, footsteps approached him with little warning, and a brilliant smile that could charm the pants off of anyone it met entered his vision. “Sorry about the wait,” the man it belonged to said, walking behind a display of necklaces as he spoke. “Just got a new shipment in, it's been a pain in my ass all morning.” 

“No, it’s fine,” he assured him, stepping back to lean against a display case of diamond rings—because what else would he bump into—as the rather familiar-looking shopkeeper gave him that smile again. “I was just…” _Having a panic attack_. “Thinking things over.”

The man standing behind the other display laughed, then he walked around to the other side, and held out his hand. “I’m Poe,” he said, and suddenly recognition flooded Ben, making him realize just where he’d seen that smile before. 

“Poe Dameron?” He asked as he shook the man’s hand. 

“Yeah, how’d you know?” 

“I… uh… knew your father.”

Poe blinked at him, befuddled. “Really? You must’ve met him when you were young.” He crossed his arms over his chest, face growing sad as he looked down at the floor. “He died when I was eight.”

Suddenly the oxygen felt like it had been sucked from the room. He’d known Kes would eventually die, and he’d left him behind in Charleston and later New York on purpose, but hearing the news that one of the few friends he’d made over the centuries of his life had passed like this—that did something to him. “H-how?”

“Car accident.” Poe stepped closer, giving Ben a sympathetic look. “I was lucky I was too young to understand what had happened, but—“ he gestured around. “I still inherited the family business anyway, helped my mom run it. Moved it from New York to here wshe died last year.”

“God, I’m—I’m so sorry.” Ben barely had the ability to speak. The one thing that had somehow never gotten easier over his many years of life was loss. He could barely handle it whenever he and Rey had to separate, and he always saw her again, so when someone left him permanently, it cut like a knife, only those wounds never healed. 

“It’s fine, it’s been long enough and I’ve changed so much that it all almost feels like it happened to someone else.”

“That’s—that’s good, I suppose.”

Poe gave him a weak smile. “Yeah, it’s better than some people get,” he said, then he cleared his throat. “But what can I help you with today? Most men that walk in here don’t just come to chat me up about my dead parents.”

The fears he’d had when he first walked into the store came flooding back, along with a barrage of images of Rey with a ring on her finger, her pink lips shrieking yes or stuttering no, and the two of them at the end of an aisle, hands joined as they vowed forever. Terror was coursing through his veins, along with the fear that he would get down on one knee and she’d tell him no, but he’d already come all this way. He’d committed to at least buying a ring when he’d left the house and driven to the shop. Whether he got down on one knee was another question entirely. 

“I need a ring,” he forced himself to say after a while. “A-an engagement ring.”

That thousand-watt smile parted Poe’s lips anew. “Oh, congratulations,” he said, moving past Ben to the ring display. “What sort of diamond?”

_Hell,_ he hadn’t really thought about it. He’d envisioned nothing beyond silver bands and a shining, sharp diamond. “I honestly don’t know. What do people usually go for?”

His friend’s son clapped a hand on his shoulder, then he gestured to the case. “What people go for is typically silver bands, and usually pristine, big ass white diamonds that sparkle like a movie star’s teeth, but why do you care what anyone else does?”

“What?”

“Why do you care what someone else buys?” Poe asked, pointing to a ring matching the very description he’d just given. “The woman you love, she’s special to you, yeah?”

The corners of his mouth twitched up as he glanced into eyes that were the perfect ghost of someone he’d once called his best friend. Before the sorrow could fill him anew from that loss, Ben nodded. “She is.”

“Tell me about her.”

Blinking his surprise, Ben searched for the words to describe his—fiancé?—to this near-complete stranger. “Her name is Rey.”

“Pretty, what does she like?”

“The ocean. She loves the water. Her face just—just lights up whenever we go to the beach,” he said, feeling warmer as he imagined her smile at the water’s edge. “And she cares about how she looks, but doesn’t dwell on it for too long, doesn’t like anything too flashy or glamorous. She loves when I play the piano in our living room, when we sing old songs together, reminisce on the old days…”

“How long have you known each other?”

“Forever.” Ben chuckled to himself at his joke, then he pressed his palms to the edge of the display, looking out over the sea of glittering diamonds. “Long enough that I should’ve been here a long time ago.”

Poe hummed delightedly, then he walked around, and gently slid the glass top from its perch on the case before he reached in, and grabbed a simple ring off the delicate white. The band he held up was golden, and contained a rounded, white diamond centered by two smaller ones that could’ve been overdone and obnoxious, but managed to look perfectly simple. “Sounds like she wants something nice, but not something loud. You can’t get her something that catches the eye, Ben.” The other man pushed the ring into his space, urging him to take it. “It should be subtle, not loud, and this may be your best bet.”

Pinching the tiny metal between his fingers, he studied it for a moment, picturing it on her hand as she kissed him gleefully, her hands tangling in his hair the way they always tended to as she told him yes without words. 

That feeling he’d gotten when he’d first started falling for her, and later when they’d first settled into their Los Angeles home found its roots in the pit of his stomach. It was the feeling of something being right beyond all doubt, like it was destiny, a twist of fate that made him certain this was the right path. His breathing became shaky as he twirled it in his fingers, watching the light strike the diamonds at its center as he gave Poe a knowing look. “You were right, this is the one.”

“Perfect,” Poe replied, then he held up a finger. “Think that’ll be her size?”

“Yeah, I do.”

“Then you have my congratulations. I’ll just get you a box, then we’ll talk price and you’ll be out of here.” 

“Perfect,” Ben breathed, then he received another charming Dameron grin, and he was momentarily left alone with that golden band in his palm. Disbelief ran through him as he stared at it, wondering how the hell he’d gotten to this point. How had it gotten to the point where two people who had once tried to kill each other were now preparing for marriage?

The ring couldn’t have weighed more than a couple of ounces, but it felt like it was three tons worth of pressure sinking into his palm. This was perhaps the biggest decision he’d made in his life, and he’d made it in a matter of seconds. All those years of buildup, all that time spent just waiting for something to happen, and the tension had snapped in seconds. 

“I’ve got it!” Poe’s voice shouted in the distance, bringing Ben back to reality once again. Footsteps filled his ears, and soon the shopkeeper was beaming at him again as he held up a burgundy colored ring box, and reached out with his other hand. “Here, I’ll put it in the box for you.”

He laughed nervously, handing the other man the ring with shaky fingers. “Thanks.” Then the diamonds and gold were resting amongst the sea of white before the box was shut, and Poe walked over to a desk near the entrance of the shop. “Just give me a second, my calculator’s from the last century.”

He’d already waited a thousand years, hadn’t he? What was one more second compared to that? 

*

The time seemed to pass in a blur once Ben got the ring back from Poe, and he handed the money over the counter. He barely even remembered the drive back to the house, he was so lost in preparing what he was going to say, thinking through all the things he wanted to tell her. 

Should he prepare a speech first? He’d heard some men gave speeches to their future wives when they got down on one knee. What the hell did he say to Rey?

_I love you, I’ve always loved you, and I know we’re spending the rest of our lives together anyway, but would you marry me?_

No, too short, simple, not enough to say to someone he’d been in love with since the Renaissance. 

_Rey, it’s been a thousand years—almost—since we met, and I’ve loved you for at least five centuries, and we—_

Planning wasn’t doing him any good. In fact, it was only making him more nervous and terrified than he already was. One more frayed nerve and he wouldn’t be able to do this. Not now. He’d have to wait again, but maybe… maybe that was okay. 

If he did it prematurely, neither of them would be ready, and he’d just ruin the perfection they’d built over the years. They still hadn’t been together nearly long enough for him, and he never wanted to lose her again. 

There had only been two things in all of history that had ever been able to separate them. The first was their hatred for one another initially, which later turned into them simply not being ready to have one person in their lives forever. The second was war. They’d been separated by three wars so far. The war for America, the Civil War, and the Great War just over twenty years ago. He knew for sure he would never hate Rey again, but he was fully aware of the conflict brewing in Europe. 

As long as the country he resided in stayed out of the conflict, they would be fine. 

He was trembling like one of the many earthquakes that had shaken their house over their years in California as he pulled up their driveway. The ring felt like it weighed a million pounds in his pocket as he shut off the car, and made his way back toward the house, praying she was still sound asleep. 

The door had never seemed noisier than it did as he opened it that morning. Hardwood floors that had once seemed like a brilliant idea now clacked loudly beneath his shoes, making him wince with each step he took. Had the stairs always creaked? Had they been in the house long enough for the stairs to creak and the damn thing to grow old under their feet? 

Ben was a mess. There was no chance he’d be able to propose in this condition, but he’d at least gotten the ring, and that was the first step. Now he could ask her to marry him anytime he wanted to, couldn’t he?

When he finally walked into their bedroom again, he was relieved to find she was still sound asleep. A smile crossed his face as he leaned against the door frame, just watching her chest rise and fall as she slept on through the morning. _Fuck,_ if she wasn’t one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen. How he’d gotten lucky enough to have her be the one person who would never die on him, he wasn’t sure. 

All he knew was that he would never stop being grateful. 

“Good morning,” she whispered, causing him to snap out of the trance he’d been in watching her. 

“Hey.” He walked further into the room, leaning over the bed to kiss her forehead before sitting down on it and remembering the ring in his pocket. His mouth opened and closed a few times; the internal debate that was warring within him reigniting violently. 

He didn’t have the guts to do this now, and seeing her again made him realize that. 

“Ben?” Her voice was full of concern. “Are you alright? You look pale.”

“Uh…” _Come up with an excuse, come up with an excuse, come up with a god damn excuse._ “I-I-I don’t know. It must be the lighting.”

Rey cocked her head disbelievingly, then she sat up and rested a hand on his arm. “I don’t think it’s just the lighting. What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” One of her hands reached for one of his, and she ran her thumb over his knuckles. “Actually, as your partner, you _should_ tell me when something’s bothering you.”

The smile he gave her this time was shy, and he leaned into her touch, listening to the sound of their mattress shifting beneath him. “Rey, I’m fine, I promise. Nothing’s wrong, I just…” Finally, it came to him. “I heard more bad news on the radio. The situation in Dunkirk’s getting worse.”

“Mmm, I’ve heard things lately,” she said, then rested her head on his shoulder with a steady exhale. “It’s getting worse over there. I’m starting to wonder how long it’ll be before we’re fighting, too.”

“If this country does go to war, I don’t think it should be both of us that go.” 

“Why not? If I can fight one war by your side, I think that’d make it easier.”

“You’ve seen the weapons they’re using in the newsreels, right? There are things out there now that have me questioning my mortality again.” Ben shifted then, still keeping his hand laced tightly with hers as he turned to face her, and caressed her cheek with his free hand. “Rey, I’m not sure we’ll make it out of this one quite as unscarred as we have the others. If we’re both out there, we’ll be worried about each other and it’ll be impossible to focus on saving people, and I... I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

“What are you suggesting we do, then?”

Looking down, Ben nodded at nothing in particular, then he squeezed her hand. “I’m suggesting that when—if—the time comes, we pick one of us. We’ll toss a coin, leave it up to chance, and whoever’s side it lands on, that’s who goes.”

“A coin toss?”

“We’re both too stubborn to let each other go any other way, and I don’t want to make what I know would be an already difficult day even harder. So we’ll toss a stupid coin, and… and one of us is going to stay here, and the other will go save lives.”

A minute of silence passed them by as she thought it over, a series of emotions crossing over her face as she processed his words. After a while, she looked up at him and fisted her free hand in the fabric of the jacket he wore. “I’m-I’m still not sure it’s a perfect idea, but I’ll do it. If it’s me in that coin toss, I’ll go and I won’t protest, same goes if it’s you.”

“Yeah, me too,” he replied, then he blinked away the thin layer of mist that had started to develop over his eyes. “Anyway, it hasn’t reached us yet, and there’s a chance it still won’t, so let’s… let’s enjoy the morning.”

“That sounds lovely.” Confusion then distorted her features as she looked him up and down. “Ben, why are you already dressed?” 

_Because I was supposed to have asked you to marry me by now and I’m too much of a coward to say it._ “Took a walk around after I heard the news. Wanted to clear my head.”

She blinked at him for a few seconds, looking as if she didn’t believe him, but didn’t want to ask what was actually bothering him. “Okay, well, maybe now you wouldn’t mind joining me on this bed and clearing mine? We’ve only got two more days in this house.”

Ben smirked as he moved closer to her. “What’d you have in mind?”

All she gave him in response was a soft little giggle before she leaned in, and whispered the filthiest words he’d ever heard her say into her ear. Soft little gasps escaped him with each one, and by the time she finished speaking, Ben was achingly hard and an absolute mess as he pulled her in for a kiss, and they descended into the mattress. 

*

The last two days at their first house went by in a blur. It felt as if Ben’s mind was refusing to commit the details of their packing up and leaving, making him think that this was just temporary and they’d still come back here someday. Sorrow filled him when he realized they wouldn’t be able to until at least the next century while they did that morbid wait for everyone they knew to die off. 

One day, though, they’d come back here, and he’d play the piano for her while they watched a sunset, and they’d pretend they’d never even left. 

The drive to San Francisco was equally numbing. Rey took the wheel this time, guiding them along the scenic coastal highway as they made their way toward a new life in the hills behind the newly built Golden Gate Bridge. He watched her as she drove, her face giving away nothing of the emotions she felt. Part of him wanted to ask her what she was thinking, but most of him just wanted to stare out at the ocean and become mesmerized by it. 

By the time they pulled up to an average-sized house with far too long a driveway, Ben was completely relaxed and unafraid of what the future held. As long as he ignored their conversation about the potential impending war two days earlier, he felt fine. 

“It’s a bit smaller than the last one,” he observed, retrieving one of their bags from the trunk of the car. “But I like the color better.”

She gave him a confused look as she pulled another suitcase out of the other side of the car. “Really? I always pegged you for loving darker colors.”

“I like this one. Pale blue, like the sky. We’ll blend in this way,” he told her, then he came around to squeeze her hand as they walked up to their front door for the first time. “Maybe we won’t have to leave if they can’t see us in the first place.”

“Mmm, I don’t think it works like that.” She shook her head, then they came upon the front door, and she let go of his hand to retrieve the keys from her pocket. 

His mind flashed back to the home they’d had in Los Angeles when they’d done this exact thing for the first time. Emotions swirled within him as he existed in two places in time simultaneously. He could see the first house in 1931, and the second in 1940 almost as if his vision were a split mirror. The two moments in his life were so similar, he felt waves of nostalgia filling him as they played out in perfect tandem. 

Rey pushed open the door to their new house, and he finally saw it for the first time. This house had a slightly more suburban edge to it than their first did, and felt as if it had been dug up from beneath the water while still maintaining its modern charm. The walls inside were slightly darker blue in some places and gray in others, but that didn’t matter to him. 

What did was the piano was waiting for him in the living room just as he expected. He could vividly remember how they’d sat behind it and sang together, how he’d set her down on it a minute later and christened the new house as his fingers made her come apart. 

He’d have to do something different this time. 

An idea popped into his head as they came to a stop in their new living room, and he knelt by his suitcase to unzip it. There was one item in their move that needed to be unpacked immediately. 

“What are you doing?” Rey asked, concern filling her eyes. 

“Getting out my camera, I want to take pictures of the house.”

“I thought it was our tradition to christen the house first.” 

A gentle laugh parted his lips, then he sighed as he finally retrieved the camera from his suitcase, and prepared it to take a picture of her. “We still can.”

She visibly shivered, then she began to undo the buttons on her blouse as he raised the camera to eye level. He watched her go down the line of buttons one by one until he could see the outline of her brassiere exposed, then he snapped his first picture, causing her to giggle delightedly. “We can’t ever develop these.”

“On the contrary, we absolutely can, we just have to find the right person to do it,” he said, snapping another picture as she slid her sleeves from her shoulder, and allowed the blouse to fall down her arms. 

Ben was in awe as she continued removing her clothing, stepping away from him with every step forward he took until they were at the staircase, and he watched her sit down to remove her stockings, tossing them over by her discarded skirt before he snapped another picture. She was now in exclusively her underwear, and she turned her back to him as she began to remove the brassiere. 

Though his heart was pounding in his chest, Ben waited until she’d let it fall to the ground completely before he took a picture of her naked back, then he followed her up the stairs as they made their way toward the master bedroom together. “This isn’t how I pictured—“

“I didn’t picture it like this either,” Rey said as she finally opened the master bedroom, and they stepped inside. “But I’m glad.”

“Me too,” he replied as he lowered his camera, then set it down on an old chair resting beside the door. “I can’t believe we’ve been together long enough to have to move.” Ben stepped forward until she was forced to tilt her head up to look at him, and he wrapped his arms around her waist. “We’ve been together for nearly ten years now.”

“We’re about to be together for a lot longer than that.” Then with a tiny, excited giggle, she leaned forward, and kissed him. 

It took all of Ben’s focus to kiss her back as his mind raced back to the ring he was still keeping in his jacket pocket. For the last few days since he’d bought the ring, he’d been shifting it from jacket to jacket in the hopes that he’d somehow have the courage to propose. That bravery had evaded him thus far, and it was slowly killing him. 

This was Rey, this was the woman he loved, trusted, and cared for more than anyone in his entire life, and he still wasn't brave enough to ask her for her hand. 

So he distracted himself by kissing her, by wrapping his arms tightly enough around her to lift her from the floor and carry her over to the bed waiting for them at the end of the room. Her legs wrapped around his hips, her mouth never leaving his as they slowly moved toward their new bed. 

He nearly stumbled as his shins finally came in contact with the foot of the bed, but instead, he just smirked against her lips, then slowly began to lower them both into the sheets. Both of them moved swiftly, eagerly the second her back made contact with the sheets, Rey’s hands eagerly undoing the buttons of his shirt before she reached up to remove his jacket from his shoulders. 

At the last possible second, he remembered the ring in his pocket, and he pulled away from her faster than a bullet. As he crawled back on his knees, Rey stared up at him in confusion, sitting up to place her hands on his shoulders as panic rushed through his veins. “Ben, are you okay?”

“I-I’m great, I just…” _Fuck,_ what excuse could he possibly come up with now? He couldn’t pretend he was just upset about Dunkirk this time. He shrugged, then removed the jacket himself. “I just needed a minute to breathe.”

“Something’s bothering you,” she observed. “It’s been bothering you for the past two days. What’s going on?”

“I… Rey, I just… I can’t believe this is real. Usually by now there would’ve been some war, or some argument, or some other bullshit that would have me not seeing you for another century, and—and the fact that it’s been ten years and I'm still waking up next to you is just…” He shook his head, then he slid his shirt down his shoulders, and tossed it and the jacket casually to the floor, praying she wouldn’t see the ring box. “I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. I feel like we’ve been living in a bubble, and I’ve never been more scared to see one burst.”

She gave him a sad smile, then she leaned forward and kissed his cheek. “It’s not going to. I’m not going anywhere.” Swallowing back the almost visible lump in her throat, Rey rested a hand on his arm. “So let’s christen the new house, let’s make some memories here, and start our new life.” 

“You’re right, I’m-I’m sorry.” He rested a hand over hers, then he leaned forward, and pressed a kiss to the line of her jaw. “Thanks for saying that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Yeah, well, it did the job of clearing my head, so thank you,” he said, then he brought his kisses lower onto her neck. “Thank you.”

A soft chuckle escaped her lips. “I’d do it again, a thousand times.”

“Rey, the things I’m about to do to you…” he whispered, then he pressed her back into the mattress, and began to descend his kisses even further. “The last time we christened a house was nothing.” He kissed her collarbone. “We have to make this one even better.” The top of her left breast, and she immediately moaned beneath him. “Up the ante.” 

“H-how?” she asked, then she gasped as his mouth closed around her nipple, and he sucked the hardened peak into his mouth. “ _Oh…”_

He nearly laughed against her skin, swirling his tongue around it as her hands came up to fist themselves in his hair. They’d only just begun, and already she was writhing beneath him. To be fair to her, if the roles were reversed, he’d be doing the same. They had an effect on one another that no one else would ever have. 

As Ben pulled off of Rey’s first nipple and moved onto the second, he knew one thing for certain: Rey was his soulmate, she was his destiny, their paths had been intertwined from the beginning, and that was never going to change. 

His eyes locked on hers as he began to suck on her other nipple, finding her watching him almost hypnotically. He gave her the best smirk he could as he watched her head tilt back, and she breathed his name on a pleasured sigh. It almost sounded like a thing of worship, and _God,_ if it didn’t make him love her even more. 

A minute later, he released her nipple, looking her dead in the eyes as he prepared to drag his kisses lower. She swore quietly under her breath as he pressed them down the line of her abdominal muscles, fisting her hands in his hair as he got closer and closer to the apex of her thighs. “God, Ben, I love you.”

He stopped just above the line of one of her hip bones, and gave her a shy, sweet twitch of his lips. “I love you, too,” he replied, then he kept going, descending his kisses until he was finally able to press an open-mouthed one to her cunt, and she began to cry out from pleasure not long after. 

He couldn’t wait long now, could he? He had to do it soon. One day in the near future, he was going to work up the courage to marry her. One day he’d get down on one knee, and ask her that stupid question he’d been dying to ask for so long. 

One day he was going to call her his _wife._


	27. San Francisco, 1940-1941 CE

Over the next week, Ben was remarkably jittery. Their old age meant they tended to exist in a frequent state of peace. Few things—other than their revelations two decades earlier that they were in love with each other—were capable of surprising them or causing anxiety anymore. 

This meant whatever was aching her partner was something big. It had to be something groundbreaking and shock-inducing, something that would whirl their lives in a new direction. 

Yet it didn’t make him sad. He was just nervous in a sort of exciting way that also managed to be oddly charming. Throughout that first week, Ben danced around her, seeming to jump every time she stepped into the same room as him but didn’t make a sound. 

Something was plaguing him, and Rey was determined to find out what. 

The first morning of June she woke up before him, which wasn’t at all uncommon since she was a lighter sleeper than he was, but it allowed her to think about what could be making Ben so scared. She wrapped her arms a little more tightly around him, pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder as he slept soundly in her embrace. 

God, she loved him, she just wished he’d tell her what was going on. The basis of their relationship was that they told each other everything, that they related to one another’s experiences in a way no one else could. She could tell Ben’s news wasn’t bad news, but she still wished he felt comfortable sharing it with her. 

No, she couldn’t force it out of him either. They trusted one another, and he would tell her when he was ready. Forcing his secret from him would just make her feel awful, and so she elected to give him the chance to come forth with it on his own before she started prodding. 

Before anything else, Ben Solo was her best friend, and he had been since the plague died out. They’d survived the dark ages and the renaissance and countless wars together, and they were going to survive one tiny, little secret. 

That morning, she allowed herself to revel in being by his side. She soaked in the warmth of his skin as it radiated onto hers, breathing in against him as the morning sun reflected off his back, and slowly began to light up the room. 

Their morning cuddles were probably her favorite part of being with Ben. Every morning, without fail, they would wake up in each other’s arms. Sometimes he held her, sometimes she held him, and on slightly more rare occasions, they held each other, but she didn’t care exactly what position they were in when they woke up. She just cared that they were together. 

“Good morning,” Ben whispered after a while, alerting her to the fact that he was awake. “How’d you sleep?”

“Perfectly.” She pressed a kiss to his shoulder, listening as he sighed in contentment. “You?”

“Mmm, I had a dream about you.” He reached up and grabbed her hand from where it was wrapped around her waist, lacing their fingers together before speaking again, his voice slurred with the final clutches of sleep. “A really good dream.”

She managed a giggle. “Oh? What happened?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“ _Ben…”_

“No.”

“Was it good?” She pressed another kiss to the juncture of his neck and spine, causing him to shiver in her arms. “Your dream? Did we have sex on the beach again?”

Ben chuckled sleepily at that, then she watched his head shake. “No.”

“What a waste, then.”

“But we didgetmarried…”

Her eyes went wide, and she froze solid around him. “What?”

“We got married on the beach. The sky was a little cloudy, but we didn’t care. We just got married on the beach.” A small, drowsy giggle left him. “Isn’t that crazy?”

“Not too crazy,” Rey replied, then she watched as he rolled over in his arms, allowing her a glimpse at his fresh-from-sleep face. “I’d like to think that’s a possibility for us someday.”

Ben’s eyes widened, and suddenly he was wide awake, ignited by her suggestion that one day they should get married. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I mean, I know we’ve been together for ten years now,” she said, reaching up to deftly stroke his upper arm. “But, Ben? I want to wait a little bit longer on marriage.”

The initial excitement she’d seen in his eyes died a little, and she felt a pant of grief wash over her at his reaction. He’d-he’d really been eager to marry her, hadn’t he? Maybe once he heard her reason, he’d perk up again. She moved her hand up to caress his cheek. “Ben, I do want to marry you one day.”

“You do?”

“Yes!” She practically screamed it at him. Of course she wanted to marry Ben, of course she wanted to walk down the aisle to him and say stupid vows in a ridiculous dress, and wear a ring on her finger, and have friends who would die on them in the span of a few decades present for the ceremony. Of course she did. “Ben, I would love to get married, but I don’t want to marry you until we know for certain this country isn’t joining the war.”

Realization dawned on those stupidly handsome features of his, making her even more charmed by him than she already was. “Oh. Yeah, that makes… that makes sense,” he breathed. “Perfect sense.”

“It should blow over eventually, and I’ll wait as long as I have to.” She leaned forward and captured his lips in a brief, but passionate kiss. “I’ve got you now, and if I have to, I’ll wait a century.”

“Please don’t make me wait that long,” he groaned, causing them both to erupt into fits of laughter. “I think having to wait to marry you might be the thing that finally kills me. That will do it. You’ll have to bury me and become a grieving widow and explain in my eulogy how I died.”

Rey was practically chortling as she buried her face in his bare chest, her laughter seeming to echo against his muscles. “You’re not going to widow me. We can’t die. Perks of the job,” she mumbled, then she kissed his left pec, feeling his heart pounding beneath her lips before she rested her chin on it, and looked up into his eyes. “Someday, okay? We’ve got all the time in the world.”

“Yeah, we do.” He then sighed, a groan passing over him as he remembered something. “Fuck, Rey, I forgot Maz was coming by today.”

“You forgot again?” 

“You’re a very good distraction.”

“Mmm, you can't blame all your memory failures on me, Ben. No matter how hard you try.” She then rolled away from him, sitting up to stretch on the bed before she stood up, and walked over to a bedside chair that held her crumpled up dressing gown in its seat. “We need to start getting dressed. If the sun’s up, then Maz can’t be far behind.”

Ben groaned rather loudly as he rolled back into the mattress. “I have never wanted to stay in bed so badly.”

“Oh come on, Maz is our friend, you love her,” Rey retorted as she made her way to the dresser on the far side of the room. “She helped us finally admit we loved each other, remember?”

Another groan sounded from the bed, but she soon heard it creaking beneath his weight as he shifted, then he too was standing, his footsteps growing closer by the second. Arms wrapped around her waist as she fisted a pair of pantyhose in her left hand, causing her to drop them in surprise as she shrieked delightedly. “Maybe, but I think she can wait ten more minutes, don’t you?”

“Ben, she’ll be here at eight. Look at the clock on the wall.”

Muttering a quiet imitation of her words, she felt him turn slightly behind her, and another discontented groan escaped his lips. “It’s a quarter till.”

“Exactly. Get dressed, you can fuck me later when she’s gone.”

Ben practically sulked away from her, his shoulders slumping as he made his way to his dresser, and began to pick through his clothes for the day’s outfit. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, she watched him. He seemed both relaxed and stressed at the same time like a weight had been taken from his shoulders only to be replaced by a new, perhaps slightly less heavy one. Again her mind wandered to that secret he’d been keeping from her for the past week. Was it possible he’d been wanting to ask her about the same thing he’d just dreamt about? Was that the reason why he was so scared?

_No._ She’d just agreed with herself that she wouldn’t ask him about it. Rey trusted him to tell her when he was ready, but now _she_ couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now _she_ was the one picturing marriage proposals, wedding dresses, churches, beaches, and vows, and she couldn’t stop herself. She wanted to marry Ben. God fucking knew she wanted to marry him, but until she knew she wouldn’t be waiting for or leaving him to go to war, she didn’t want to let herself have that kind of happiness. 

The thought of it getting snatched away from her by the most vicious, cruel fighting the world had ever seen was just too much. 

She needed a distraction, and according to the clock on the wall, they did still have fifteen minutes before Maz would arrive at the house. They could do something with that fifteen minutes. Especially if she skipped mascara that day. 

“Ben?” she asked quietly, laying down her clothes for the day before turning around to face him. 

“Hmm?” He was still setting out his clothes, still beautifully stark naked in front of his dresser. _Fuck_ , why had she deprived herself of seeing that ass for nearly ten centuries? The damn thing was a work of art. It was sculpted by fucking angels. At least, she thought it might’ve been if such heavenly beings truly did exist, because nothing short of a miracle could’ve sculpted—well—his whole body. 

Ben was a maze of muscles, and the ones that belonged to his ass were certainly no exception. 

“I changed my mind, we’ve got fifteen minutes, and I want you to make me come in ten.” Her hands fell to her hips, and she stared at him firmly, watching his mouth fall open like a grouper fish as he blinked at her as if she’d just confirmed for him Atlantis was real. 

“You want me to what?” he nearly choked out. 

A laugh escaped her as she began to take steps toward him, speaking one word with each time she moved forward. “I want you to make me come in ten minutes,” she told him, reaching up to run the tips of her fingernails in the space between his pectoral muscles as she watched his breathing stutter. “And don’t hold back.” 

Ben’s heart was racing beneath her fingertips, but he only hesitated for a fraction of a second before one of his hands came up to support the base of her skull, and he kissed her fiercely. 

In spite of all the years she’d had to get used to the intensity of his kisses, something about this one still made her head spin. She felt like she was floating, like she was miles above the earth as she returned the kiss, not bothering to break it even as his arms wrapped around her waist, and she was lifted into his embrace. Her legs simply wrapped around his hips, heels digging into the ass she couldn’t stop admiring a minute earlier as he carried her back over to their bed. 

They didn’t even break it as he set her down, they didn’t need to. 

It didn’t end until he began moving downward, pressing kisses all over her body on a frenzied journey south. She was shivering beneath each touch, but there was no time for him to be slow and cautious about it. She wanted to come beneath his tongue and she wanted to do it immediately. The clock was quite literally ticking, and time was of the essence. 

Ben wasted no time in the placement of his kisses. He didn’t give her breasts attention the way he always did, and he didn’t suck a mark into her skin at the line made by her rib cage in that way that drove her wild either. He simply kept going farther down until his mouth was on her clit. Only then did he let his tongue begin to lavish her, only then did he dare suck her into his mouth like he was tasting the world’s finest wine. 

He was all pleasure and no business when he needed to be, and that was part of what she loved about him. Ben knew precisely how to love her in a way no one else did or ever would. Only he managed to make her feel the lightning in her veins as he licked and sucked at her cunt like a man starved, only he knew how crazy she went when he dipped his tongue inside of her, and her hands buried themselves in his hair as she cried out his name 

She’d heard in stories and books she’d read over the years of two people being made for one another. The authors of said stories probably weren’t referring to _this_ , but still, she knew. 

No one would ever understand them on the physical or spiritual level in which they understood each other. 

Above all, no one would be able to make her come in eight minutes the way that he did. She’d already been close, already been practically a sobbing mess by the time he began to press a finger inside of her, but the addition of that finger—followed soon after by a second—pushed her over the edge, and she found herself coming with a shout against his mouth. 

And he didn’t even stop there. 

Ben continued eating her out through her orgasm, causing waves of pleasure that were almost too much to rush through her as she mumbled his name incoherently from her useless lips. Her entire body was limp, pliable, dead weight in the mattress he’d laid her on, and the way he looked at her as he finally pulled himself away, he knew damn well what he did. 

“Fuck,” she breathed, her eyes finding their way over to the clock almost drunkenly. The numbers blurred in her vision for a minute before she finally read the time, which was seven minutes until eight. They’d finished—well, she certainly had—with plenty of time to spare. 

The man on top of her was smirking as her gaze fell on him. “Satisfied?”

She gave him an eager nod. “Very,” she panted out, then she slowly sat up, and brushed a piece of his hair behind his ear. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, the sound you make when you come is a fucking privilege to hear,” he replied, then he got up off the bed with that stupid look still plastered on his face, and offered her his hand. “I think we owe Maz breakfast.”

Another sigh escaped her lips. “Somewhere out there is a world where we don’t know anyone, and you and I can just lay here doing this all day.”

He all but snorted. “Rey, when we don’t have plans with people, this _is_ what we do most days.”

“Oh come on not most days,” she grumbled as she took his hand, and allowed him to lead her off the bed. “Just on… a lot of them.”

Ben was snickering as he walked over to his dresser, and continued to do so as he put on his clothes. She watched him as she put on hers, disappointed when she watched his ass disappear beneath a pair of trousers as she put on a brassiere. 

“When we get married, should we do it on a beach?” she asked, zipping up the black fabric of her skirt. “You know, like you did in your dream?”

He froze, then she watched his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed nervously. “We’re not even engaged, and you’re already planning?”

“If the war never happens, then we’ll have wasted all this time worrying for nothing,” she answered him, then she threw on her blouse, tucked it into the skirt, and walked over to his side of the room to help him button his shirt. “So I just… want to get the basics out of the way. Church or beach?”

The man before her took a moment to think as she worked through the buttons of his shirt, then reached into his dresser to grab the tie he’d laid out for himself. “Beach. Neither of us is particularly religious, and given the amount of pre-marital sex we’ve been having, we’d probably be damned to hell the second we stepped in a church.”

Rey rolled her eyes, then she worked the material of the tie around his neck. “I agree, but I think you’re a little paranoid.”

“If anything else gets between me and you?” He reached up, placing his hands over hers as she finished tying the knot. “I don’t think I’d be able to stand it.”

“Even if it was God himself?”

“Rey, if he’s real, he’s going to see the biggest punch to the face for all the shit he’s done to us.”

“I’ll throw the second one,” she replied, then she finished tying his tie, and leaned forward to press a brief kiss to his lips. “But I fully agree. We’ll get married on the beach. Now it’s just a matter of figuring out what beach.”

“We’ve got time. We’re not even engaged yet,” he reminded her. 

Rey just kissed him again. “I know,” she whispered, then she heard the sound of someone knocking on their front door. “Get your shoes on, we’ve got company.”

“I wish we didn’t,” he said quietly, but obeyed the command, then they both walked out of the bedroom, and made their way down to their front door. 

Excitement filled Rey as she ran to the door. They were all but formally engaged to be married. The conversation was had, the location was somewhat decided, and the decision had been made that yes, they were indeed going to walk down some sort of aisle at some point, but there was still one thing that stood between them and certain peace. 

And it all hinged on whether or not the United States fell into the same, brutal conflict that plagued the rest of the world. 

*

Over the next year or so, Rey started to believe that maybe they’d be safe. Well, she almost did. Things were getting so intense that she was positive at some point, either she or Ben would be going off to war, but she still held out hope. 

Maybe things would turn around. Maybe things wouldn’t go south like she thought they would. Maybe they’d get lucky. 

It was all a bunch of _what-ifs_ and not enough certainty. Everyone and everything was on edge, as if people were afraid to look away from an inevitable collision. It felt like they’d careened wildly off course, and now were falling into a deep, endless pit of fear. 

Every time Rey saw a coin she grew fearful. She wanted to ditch every penny they had in the house; she wanted every dime, quarter, or nickel gone. If there was no coin, there could be no toss, right? And neither of them would have to go when things inevitably went south?

It was all just wishful thinking. She could never in a million years get so lucky. 

Nearly a week into December, she and Ben were cuddling on the couch while listening to the radio. A news broadcast was playing in the background, and he’d fallen asleep, but she couldn’t help staying wide awake listening to every horrid detail of what was happening overseas. 

She tried to keep herself calm as she casually stroked Ben’s hair, listening to the sounds of his breaths as they ghosted over her chest. It reminded her of when they’d escaped Gettysburg in 1863, when he’d laid his head in her lap, and slept through the train ride down south as she told Rose and Paige Tico their life story. 

Back then they’d only been friends. It would’ve still been impossible to fathom the loss of him, but she hadn’t known him then like she knew him now. 

To lose Ben, after all, they’d been through? It would devastate her completely. 

She knew what modern technology could do to people, knew how much deadlier things had gotten since they were young, and it frightened her. If he won their coin toss and went off to war, she would spend every waking moment he was away fearing for his life. If the roles were reversed; he’d do the same. 

Life had been good to them for the last ten years, but good things had their limits. Or maybe they’d just been wrong. Maybe it wasn’t their time yet. That thought stung more than she could fathom, but maybe it was true. 

They’d gotten a decade together, and apparently, the universe had decided that was more than they deserved. 

Sniffling quietly, Rey leaned down to press a kiss to the top of Ben’s head, wishing beyond anything that they’d relocated to anywhere in the world that wasn’t involved in the fight yet. Perhaps one of the Latin American nations down south, or maybe somewhere off in the east, but where that would be, she had no clue. Most of the world was involved in the conflict, and no matter what they did there seemed to be no escape. 

This was inevitable. This was fate. 

And so it felt like the grim reaper himself had finally shown up at their door just before noon the next day. Rey was in the kitchen with Ben, and the two were laughing and teasing one another as they chopped tomatoes for their sandwiches. The day was sunny, and the daytime star was lighting their entire house as they cooked lunch, and listened to the news in the background. 

In hindsight, Rey wouldn’t remember what they’d been talking about beforehand. She would only remember the during and after. All she knew was her world came apart with the words “ _From the NBC newsroom in New York, President Roosevelt said in a statement today, that the Japanese have attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii from the air_ …”

Both she and Ben dropped what they were doing. The knife in his hand missed the fruit he was cutting, and she heard him gasp as it cut through a part of his thumb instead. The tomato in hers fell to the floor, bruising irreparably as the radio announcement continued to echo inaudibly in her brain. 

It felt as if she turned around in slow motion, looking over at her partner in fear as he looked down at the wound he’d accidentally created in his hand. Blood was dripping down from the cut and onto the floor in a steady, but small stream, joining the juice of her tomato in a terrible, crimson mixture that perfectly summed up how she felt inside. Both of them had gone pale, their eyes slowly drifting up toward each other as they processed the news they were hearing. 

The announcement wasn’t a declaration of war—not yet—but it was a spark that would ignite the fire that would burn everything they loved to the ground. 

“Ben…” she whispered, conjuring to mind the image of them snuggled up on their living room sofa the previous night, his head resting on her chest as he slept on top of her, and the radio played quietly in the background. 

They both watched as the wound on his thumb slowly began to close, reminding them both of just why one of them would be going to war very, very soon. Neither of them ever died or remained injured long enough to. They’d taken bullets to the head, lost limbs, been stabbed, drowned, beaten, and had their guts wrenched apart to retrieve bullets. They’d been through hell, and now one of them was about to go through even more of it. 

He didn’t say anything back. Instead, he marched the short distance across the kitchen to her and wrapped his arms around her waist so that he could pull her close in a hug. Rey felt a lump rise in her throat as she returned the embrace, holding him more tightly than she ever had before in the hopes that somehow, she’d be able to keep him in her arms forever. 

A quiet sob escaped him as more news of the attack on Pearl Harbor filled their ears, and they became fully aware that the bubble they’d been living in had burst. Wet, hot tears spilled onto her hair as he pressed kisses into it. Her own fell on his shoulders, on the collar of his shirt, staining the fabric with a damp mark that would fade in just a few hours. 

Silence fell over the couple as they stayed there like that for what could’ve been any length of time known to man. The world was moving around them, but they thought if they didn’t move with it, maybe time would stand still. 

She would forever remember the smell and sound of the food they’d abandoned on the stove. The bacon they’d started for their BLTs was burning, the sizzling in their ears nearly deafening against the quiet. It reminded her of all the gunfire she’d heard in her years of war. In it, she could see the patriots she’d shot in the war for America going down with screams of mercy, or the many American and confederate soldiers who had died on the horrendous battlefields during the civil war. She could hear and see every face she’d ever slaughtered, even during the wars in which she’d never held a gun. 

“I love you,” Ben whispered against her hair. “I… I love you so much.” 

If he said something next, Rey couldn’t hear it. She had begun to sob without willing it to happen, her hands balling the fabric of his shirt into fists as she cried into his upper chest. 

Another hour must’ve gone by as they held each other and cried. At some point, one of them had turned off the stove, but she couldn’t remember which one of them it was. The detail wasn’t important to the picture, and this one was worth more words than she knew how to say. 

“I love you, too,” she told him after a while, her voice breaking as she finally pulled back from him. “We need to toss that coin while we still have the strength to do it.”

“They haven’t formally declared war yet,” Ben protested, his voice shaking with sobs that desperately wanted to escape his throat. His eyes were red, bloodshot from all the crying he’d been doing without giving himself a chance to heal. If she were to have looked in a mirror, she figured she probably would’ve looked the same. “Shouldn’t we wait?”

“Ben, they’ve been looking for a way to enter this war for months, and they’ve found it. We need to toss the coin.” She adjusted her grip on the fabric in her hand. “Please don’t make this harder than it already is.”

Letting loose another weak sob, he gave her a nod, and let go of her with one arm to retrieve a coin from his pocket. 

The decider of their fate was a 1929 quarter made from silver somewhere in the middle of nowhere, United States. George Washington’s face haunted her as she watched Ben bring it into the light, and blink more tears from his red eyes. “Which side do you want?”

Rey stifled another cry of grief with the back of her hand, then she swallowed, and told him, “Heads.”

“I’ll be tails, then,” he said, then he flicked the coin into the air, and the slowest second of her life commenced in tragic, horrifying slow motion. It felt like she could see every rotation of the coin from heads to tails in clear, vivid detail that counted down the tenths of a second toward their fate. 

This was another one of _those_ moments; the ones that changed her life, and echoed through the centuries like a brutal, vicious bomb. The last time she’d felt a sense of anticipation like this had been when they’d first met, when they’d shaken hands for the first time and she’d experienced that electric feeling that always came with touching him. Back then the feeling hadn’t made her nauseous as it did now, it didn’t make her terrified for what came next, but as she locked eyes with Ben, the quarter turning between them in the afternoon sunlight, it most certainly did. 

The coin landed in Ben’s palm, and he slammed it down onto his arm but didn’t remove his hand from it, saving their one last moment of innocence as he looked at her with a petrified gaze. “This isn’t fair.”

“I know it isn’t,” she whispered, then she shook her head, reaching for his hand as she spoke. “Just remove your hand, rip it off like a bandage.”

“I was gonna ask you to marry me,” he said in a choked sob, and his words caused Rey’s blood to pump faster through her veins. “I went to a shop in Los Angeles last year before we moved.” Another onslaught of tears fell onto his cheeks, and he looked down as her jaw fell open. “And I bought you a ring.”

“Ben—“

“Marry me.” The words left him in a rush, his eyes clamping shut as he leaned his forehead against hers, a touch so familiar and yet so heartbreaking all the same. “We’ll go to the beach, I’ll find a priest or-or something. We’ll elope. Plenty of soldiers do it before they go off to war.”

Her breath hitched as she pictured it. She’d find a white dress in her closet, he’d put on his Sunday best, and together they’d run to the beach and have a rushed ceremony full of tears and promises of forever. It was far from what she wanted for them, but it was better than nothing, wasn’t it?

_No,_ another part of her thought. They deserved better. They deserved an easy going wedding that they could enjoy free of stress and worry. They’d been through too much to have anything less. Tears spilled onto her cheeks as she opened her eyes, and moved back as she rested a hand over his cheek, wiping away the drops on the left side of his face. “Not like this.”

“What?”

“Ben, when I marry you, I don’t want it to be because I thought I was never going to see you again. I want it to be because it’s time for us to spend our lives together. I want it to be because we finally don’t have to part ever again, and we can just be husband and wife without…” She gently stroked the skin of his cheek. “Not yet. Someday, but not yet.”

He slowly nodded, then he took a shaky breath. “If I gave you the ring, would you wear it?”

“I don’t want it yet either,” she told him, and god, it had been so long since she’d seen such sadness in those eyes. “Ask me to marry you after this is over. The minute one of us gets home, ask me again. I’ll put it on my finger and we’ll start planning a real wedding.”

Hesitation held him captive for a few seconds, then with another quiet whimper, he blinked more tears free, and took in a deep breath. “Okay.”

“Move your hand.”

Another breath, then he held it, his whole body stiff except for the hand that began to move away from the quarter on his wrist, revealing the silver again as they watched. She found herself holding her breath as well as his hand unveiled which side was facing them, then they both let out the air in their lungs in a stuttered rush that left them both speechless. 

In the aftermath, they looked up at one another in understanding and resignation. They could protest or try to fight the verdict of that stupid quarter, but they’d agreed a year ago in their first home together that they would honor its decision. There would be no fighting this. The person chosen by chance was going to war, and the other would be helping the effort from home. 

This was their fate. This was what had been decided long ago. 

Not a word was spoken between them. Anything they had to say was said with the look they shared, with the _grief_ running in the space between them. The two were in mourning for the millionth time, and just when she thought she’d experienced enough loss, too. 

The quarter fell to the floor, pinging loudly against the tile as Ben stepped forward, and took her face in his hands, kissing her as tears streamed down their faces, washing away the last of the happiness they’d built. Their kiss found its rhythm immediately, but it felt different than all the others. It carried melancholy energy to it as if it weren’t a greeting like it usually was. This wasn’t a hello, but a goodbye. 

_Fuck that_ , she thought. They didn’t have to say goodbye just yet. They still had just a little more time left to spend. Their cards weren’t all on the table. They had one more hand. 

With a light push to his shoulder, she shoved him away, but before he could give her that look which resembled a wounded animal, she grabbed his hand, and stepped back, guiding him out of the kitchen. They were still soundless as he allowed her to guide him out of it and into their living room toward the staircase. 

She felt her heart breaking as she remembered the first time they’d run up it together. If she looked closely, she could see the ghosts of the clothes she’d tossed aside, the flash of his camera, and the haunting sound of her laughter as she seduced him to their bedroom for the first time. 

But that hurt too much to think about, so she pushed those thoughts aside, and continued leading him up the stairs. The silence was deafening, roaring in her ears louder than any sound they could’ve made. It almost hurt to listen to, but she didn’t know what to say or how to process what had just happened. There weren’t words to describe what she felt. 

Sometimes things in life were beyond description, and attempting to write them down, or think up a phrase that fit them just didn’t work. What this was? She would never find words for it. Some pain hurt too much. 

She felt numb as they walked into the bedroom, barely even registering when Ben wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. His heart was beating firmly against her ear, the way it always had for an entire millennium since they’d first met. That sound broke something inside of her, filling her with another fresh wave of sorrow that didn’t seem to retreat. 

They stayed like that for a minute, just swaying in one another’s arms before either one of them even considered moving. When they did, it was so they could kiss again, so that his lips could find hers to prevent any words from being said. There was nothing to say. If either of them spoke a word, it would ruin the moment they were creating, would destroy the tenderness that had built between them, so they continued in silence. 

Rey’s hands came up to rest on his chest, sliding up the fabric until her fingers found the top button of his shirt. The only sound he made was a soft little cry against her lips as she began to undo them one by one, her fingers working in a steady line until they had all come apart, and all that was beneath her was his bare chest. 

As if it was their first time, she let her fingertips tremble loosely over the hard planes of his abdomen, memorizing the shape of him like she’d never get to know it again. They’d certainly have goodbye sex before separating, but she wanted that to be beautiful. She wanted to feel normal. The time to grieve and mourn was now, and so this time they were going to take things slow, and ensure there wasn’t a detail of one another that could be forgotten overseas. 

His hands came up to undo the zipper of her dress, lips never leaving hers as the sound of it going further and further down the fabric of her dress filled the room. It almost felt deafening, like it was taking the place of guns and bombs and mines that would soon be haunting them. Rey tried not to think about it as she pulled her hands back to slide her dress from her shoulders, feeling him do the same with his shirt as they briefly broke the kiss before diving back in. 

The kisses they shared that day were gentle and explorative; another study in memorization that dropped more tears onto their cheeks. Each one broke her heart a little more than the last, but she pushed those feelings aside as she reached down for the button of his trousers. If she let herself start crying properly again, nothing would come of this. They’d be frozen. 

His slacks came undone effortlessly, and he broke the kiss again to remove them and his underwear in one fell swoop before getting down on his knees to do the same for her. She shivered beneath his touch as he slowly pulled down the fabric of her stockings and underwear, then pressed a kiss to the juncture of her hip and thigh. Ben knew how to love her, and it showed. 

Without saying a word, they both kicked the pools of fabric away from their feet, and once he stood, they wrapped their arms around each other again. The man she’d realized to be her soulmate lifted her into the air, allowing her to wrap her legs around him as he carried her to the bed, but he didn’t set her down on it. No, he wanted her on top of him, so he simply sat back on the mattress instead, watching Rey as she settled over him. 

Those golden embers in his eyes didn’t have their usual light. It was almost like it had been sniffed out by the tears he cried, and a fresh wave of mourning passed over her. They still held a flicker of hope in them as she reached down to take his cock in her hand, but the excitement that usually accompanied such a gesture was gone, replaced by a tiny noise of approval as she stroked him lightly. 

Ben’s eyes closed as he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against her collarbone as she positioned herself over his erection, then slowly sank onto him, moaning softly at the way he stretched her. They hadn’t done much in the way of foreplay, but she didn’t have the patience to wait and it wasn’t as if he could hurt her anyway. There were perks to not dying or getting injured, after all. 

Both of them let out soft groans as she took him as deeply as she was able, pausing for a few seconds as they adjusted to one another— _memorizing_ the way he felt inside of her. Once that had passed, though, she began to move. 

Ben pulled back from her as she rode him, watching her move as if he couldn’t be compelled to look away. She could see him committing every detail of her to his brain in ways he hadn’t quite done before. They’d memorized one another in the past, but never in a way that they thought they wouldn’t see each other again. 

Her fingers threaded themselves in his hair, pulling him in for a kiss as his hands came up to support her back, large palms spreading out over her spine to cause goosebumps to form on her skin. A sense of comfort filled her at the feeling of his hands on her body, and she thought that maybe if she could bottle up this feeling and take it with her everywhere she went, surviving this war wouldn’t be that hard. 

If she could always feel like this, maybe she could survive anything. 

It felt ridiculously good to have him inside of her. The way he fit there had her certain that he’d been hand-crafted to be hers, that they’d always been destined for this from the beginning.

For a while, it allowed her to forget about all the pain she was feeling. While they continued not to speak a word, quiet little noises of pleasure escaped them both as she rode him a little harder, and his kisses fell onto her neck. He was no longer simply relearning her, but he was actively enjoying it, and so was she. 

Both of them forgot for just a few, crucial minutes the reason they’d sulked up to their bedroom and taken off their clothes. They forgot the distant smell of burnt bacon, the afterimage of the coin tossing in the air, and the voice of the newscaster as he told them that the Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor. This was just another day, another round of lovemaking spurred by passion and passion alone. They were going to finish here and carry on with lunch, and he was going to get down on one knee and she was going to say yes, and they were going to live their lives in peace. 

Ben reached a hand between them, further removing her from reality as his thumb began to circle her clit, and she felt like she was drifting blissfully out to sea. He’d taken her away from the pain she was in and replaced it with a beautiful sort of daydream peppered with unspoken promises of finding one another again and forever. They would be together again after this war. 

It wasn’t long after that she came with a shout around his cock, uncertain whether he was coming with her as she leaned forward to bury her face in his hair, visions of the coin-flipping horrifically in the air filling her mind as her orgasm rushed through her. She wasn’t sure if she was crying or gasping from pleasure, she was too haunted by the memory of Ben removing his hand to reveal which of them would be going off to war. 

She felt him come inside of her as she recalled the image of the tails side of the coin filling her vision, confirming that it would be him going off to fight instead of her. A small sob fell from her lips as her climax began to fade, and he held her close against him as they lay back on the bed, still joined as if they’d merely put things on pause. 

As if they were pretending it wasn’t over. 

A hand lazily began to stroke the skin of her back, shaking over the ridges of her spine as he sighed into her neck, then pressed one last kiss there. “I’m coming back.”

“I know,” she whispered, the first words she’d spoken since they’d been in the kitchen earlier. “I know.”

“Then I’m gonna marry you,” he told her, kissing the side of her neck again. “I promise.”

Rey sniffled as she pulled away from him again, looking down on his tear-streaked face as a sense of doom flooded her. Sure, Ben wanted to come back, and odds were he would, but something funny settled in the pit of her stomach that took the name of doubt. She could no longer be sure that he would make it back to her, and that was going to have to be something she learned to accept. 

At least for the time being, she was going to pretend she knew one hundred percent whether or not Ben would be coming home. She was going to pretend that this was only a short little parting that wouldn't go wrong like all the others in the past, and she’d see him again within a year. 

She was going to pretend she had Ben’s ring on her finger and they were about to get married, and the fucking war was already over. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.


	28. World War Two, 1942-1945 CE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi friends! Sorry for the delay with this chapter, I am very very busy at the moment. DragonCon was last weekend and before that was the first week of school, so not a lot of time to write, but we're here! We've made it through this one!
> 
> Before we begin, I just want to warn for (SPOILERS) a scene of violence toward the end involving a downed plane. I didn't get too graphic with it, but I operate by a rule of "if I even have to consider warning about something, I should warn about it."

When she saw him in uniform for the first time a month later, Ben nearly burst into tears. She was sitting on their bed, her hands clenched into fists at her side, and her expression was unreadable. 

He knew what that meant. Whenever he couldn’t tell what she was thinking, she was trying to hide something from him, and the only time she ever did that was when it was something remarkably painful. Her eyes were cold like the January air, and yet he could feel the pain rolling off of her in waves. 

There were no words for him to say. All he could do was sit down beside her on the bed, and wrap his arms around her shoulders to pull her into his chest in a warm embrace. 

His heart was shredded into a million pieces when he felt her tears leaking through the fabric of his uniform, and he made a single, solemn vow to himself. He was going to survive this war. Nothing had killed him yet, and nothing was going to. He was going to live, if not for himself, then for her. 

Once the war was over, he was coming home, picking her up in his arms, kissing her senseless, and finally getting down on one knee to ask her the question he’d been waiting all these years to ask. Then they’d be married, and he was never going to leave her again. 

*

She took him to the airport the next day. Both of them were still so quiet through the entire drive, he’d started to worry he’d forget how to speak. 

Rey’s hands were steady on the wheel of their car, but tears were streaming down her face at a rate that had him wondering how she could see the road. A shaky breath escaped him, then he gently placed a hand on her shoulder, and rubbed it slowly, almost massaging the tense muscle beneath her dress. “I’m coming back.”

“I know,” she replied, turning onto the road that would lead them across the Golden Gate Bridge. “I just—I just—“ A pause, then as they came upon traffic, she pressed on the break, steadily guiding them to a stop before she dared to look at him. “We were happy here, and I’m sure we’ll be happy again someday, but I know how war works. You’ll come back with new mental scars, you’ll come back hurting from memories I will only ever be able to partially understand, and for a good few decades after this, nothing will be the same. It will take us another lifetime to heal from this war.”

He nodded, then she placed a hand over the one on his shoulder, leaning her head over them both as she let out a deep breath, seeming almost comforted by the touch. Still, he knew it wasn’t enough. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

Rey said nothing in the aftermath and remained silent until they parked in the airport. He watched her lip quiver the entire time, feeling clueless as to how to make her feel better. There wasn’t anything he could do, but he’d be damned if he didn’t try. 

The words didn’t find him until they were sitting still in the parking area outside the airport, and he looked over to find her hands still gripping the steering wheel so tightly, her knuckles were white. Holding back the lump in his throat, he gently removed them one after the other, then grasped her fingers in his. “This isn’t the end, Rey. It never is.”

“That doesn’t make it hurt less,” she whispered, then she spared him another sorrowful glance. “I’ve been spoiled these last ten years, having you around. I don’t know what life will be like without you anymore.”

“Neither do I.” He leaned forward to kiss her cheek, tasting saltwater from her tears on his lips as he pulled away. “But we’ll survive.”

She sniffled again but nodded. “Let’s get your things, I want to do this as quickly and painlessly as possible.” Then she pulled away from him, and moved to her out of the car, leaving Ben sitting in his seat for a few seconds before he moved to join her. 

Together the two of them opened the back doors of their car and grabbed Ben’s things. It hurt him more than he’d ever fully understand to sling his pack over his shoulder and walk around to the other side of the car to retrieve his papers from her. The minutes passed like hours as they made sure everything was in place, and by the time they were finished, Ben was barely keeping it together. 

“I want to give you something,” she told him, then he gave her a confused stare, wondering what more she could give to him after the wonderful decade they’d had together. “I-I want you to hold onto it for me, actually.” 

His brows furrowed together, but then his jaw fell slack as he watched her reach up for the locket around her neck, and she undid the clasp. It fell limply into one of her hands, then she closed her eyes for a half-second, and held it out to him. Both of them were trembling as he reached out to take it, her hand feeling weirdly cold against his as his fingertips grazed it. 

Once it was held in his fist, Ben looked up at her with fear and hope in his eyes. “Why are you giving me this? I could lose it.”

“I want you to have a piece of me while you’re away,” she explained, then she tapped the locket’s clasp. “Open it.”

Another wave of confusion filled him, then he obeyed her command, flicking the locket open to reveal what should’ve been a picture of him in 1916, but was everything he hadn’t expected. The image in her locket had been replaced. It now showed her as she undressed in their house a year earlier, she was down to her brassiere and underwear, and Ben shivered at the sight. “When did you do this?”

“Last week. I snuck away while you were sleeping.” She gave him a weak-hearted smile. “I wanted to get those damned photos developed, even if I got some crude remarks and looks.”

They both chuckled at this, blinking tears from their eyes as Ben closed the locket again, and stashed it in a pocket over his chest. “How could I have denied myself the chance to love you for so long?” he whispered, then he leaned forward before she could have the chance to answer, and kissed her. 

Her arms wrapped eagerly around his neck as she leaned into him, allowing herself to be bent backward slightly over his arm as it wound around her waist. Tears brushed against his nose as they fell from their eyes, but he didn’t care, he just kissed her harder, memorizing her lips like it was the last time he’d ever kiss her. For all he knew, this would be one war he couldn’t come back from. 

This could have been their last kiss. 

He remembered their first one, when she’d suddenly grabbed hold of him beneath a Georgia oak, and knocked the air from his lungs as she pleaded with him not to go to war for the first time. She’d kissed him goodbye then thinking she’d never see him again, but they had just fifty years later, and that gave him a stupid sense of hope. 

If they’d survived that war, and the Great War a little over twenty years earlier, they could surely survive this one, as hard as he knew it might be. Still, his immortality didn’t prevent everything around him from fading away or getting lost, and there was one thing he couldn’t afford to lose. He could get Rey another locket. He could technically get her another ring, but he didn’t want to. The first ring he got her was going to be the one he slid onto her finger, and no war was going to change that. 

Ben pulled away a few seconds later, then he reached into the pocket of his jacket as Rey began to ask him why he stopped, feeling around in it for a second before he found the box. Taking in a deep, shaky breath, he presented it to her, his hand quivering as he held it out in the space between them, and he watched her face grow pale. “I’m not going to ask you to marry me,” he said softly. “Not right now, but I am going to ask you to hold onto this, because if I lose this during battle—“

She cut him off with a nod, then let him place the box in her hand, gripping it tightly in her fingers as she closed her eyes. “I won’t open this until you’re back, but…” They opened, and he glanced into their brilliant hazel for what may have been the last time. “I want you to know, when you ask me, my answer will b—“

“Don’t tell me.” His forehead pressed against hers, and he held her just a little more tightly in his embrace. “I know what you’ll say, but I don’t want to hear it until I come back.”

Rey groaned, but then he heard her sigh in resignation. “You’re going to miss your flight if I hold you any longer.” A sniffle escaped her as she pulled back, and looked sorrowfully into his eyes. Mist was forming in hers, and Ben could see the tears that were threatening to form before they were fully conceived. “I love you, more than anything.”

“I love you, too.”

“Come back to me.” She grasped his face in her hands. “I don’t care what you have to do to survive, just–just come back to me.”

Ben didn’t say anything in response. He simply wrapped his arms around her and kissed her one more time. This kiss he didn’t savor as much as the last one. That had been the one he wanted to cherish and commit to memory. This one was going to be short, sweet, and simple. 

It was just a kiss goodbye. 

He pulled away before he was ready, knowing that if he waited any longer, he wouldn’t be able to leave her ever. If he didn’t leave right then, at that moment, he would take her to the nearest chapel and ask if she’d be willing to marry him then and there. 

A tiny sob escaped his throat, then he let go of her, watching a tear make its way down her cheek as he stepped back. One last moment of pure grief passed between them as they stared at one another, then Ben blinked, allowing tears to streak down his face as he tried to tell her everything he was feeling in his gaze. With all they’d been through, he knew she understood it, and so he found the courage to turn around, keeping the sob that threatened to wrench itself from his throat inside as he began to walk toward the airport entrance. 

_ Don’t look back. Don’t look back. Don’t look back.  _ If he dared to take one last peek her way, he would come running back. All the pain they’d endured already would just grow worse. So he pushed on, keeping his eyes downcast as he walked away from her, even though he could feel her eyes on him until the moment he was out of her line of sight. 

Ben hardly remembered the walk to his airport gate. He barely remembered getting on the plane. Grief overwhelmed him, and he knew he’d been through far worse things than just saying goodbye, but he’d had ten years to get used to being happy. He’d had ten years of splashing in the waves, holding her close against him or being held by her in the night, kissing her senseless when and wherever he wanted, and all the times they’d made love, all the times they’d clung to one another in the sheets. 

To be wrenched from all those wonderful things so suddenly was the highest form of cruelty he’d ever been subjected to. 

Ben was sitting in his seat for a good fifteen minutes before he finally snapped out of his grief-induced stupor, and even then, he only moved when he heard someone say his name very quietly. When he looked up, more grief threatened to create a fresh round of tears as he looked up into a pair of eyes that reminded him painfully of ones he’d last seen in 1922. Poe Dameron was standing above him wearing a uniform that matched his down to the last detail, and suddenly the war became even more daunting than it already was. 

“Poe Dameron,” he breathed as the son of his long-dead friend sat down beside him. “Wh…”

“I’d say I’m happy to see you, but—“ He let out a lengthy exhale. “Now I just know you’re going out the same way I am. Guns blazing.”

What did he say in response to that? How was he supposed to react? There weren’t words, there wasn’t any set of letters in any language Ben knew that could describe how he was feeling, and before he could voice them, another man sat down in front of them looking equally as grim as Poe did. Another life he could already see himself striving to protect. These men could die. A bullet, no matter where it hit, could be fatal to them. That fact never escaped him, no, but it did hurt to think about what would happen if he allowed himself to become close to Kes Dameron’s son and the man he was now turning to greet. 

“You a nervous flier, Finn?” 

The man sitting in front of them looked apprehensive as he shifted in his chair, and watched more and more would be soldiers as they walked down the aisle toward the tail of the plane. “Only for this flight.”

“You’ll have to get used to it, you said you were Air Force, too.” 

Finn laughed nervously, then he adjusted the collar of his shirt. “Guess I am a nervous flier, then.”

A laugh erupted from Poe, then he gestured between his new friend and Ben. “I know you and I barely know each other, but I barely know him, too. Ben, this is Finn, Finn, this is Ben.”

Giving the third member of their party a grim smile, Ben leaned across the space between them and extended his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Finn said, grasping Ben’s hand as he shook it firmly, then they both relaxed in their seats. “How’d you two meet?”

At this, he froze, remembering precisely how he’d come to meet Poe. He recalled in vivid detail how he’d walked into his jewelry shop trembling and just barely avoiding stumbling all over himself as he tried to find a ring for the woman he loved, and his whole body shuddered. How the hell did he answer Finn’s question without explaining the reason why he wasn’t married yet?

Unfortunately for him, the spitting image of Kes Dameron decided to answer first. “Ben walked into my shop to buy a ring for his girl,” he said with a smile, then his eyes wandered down to his left hand, and his expression fell. “Wedding not happen yet?”

“Uh…” Ben’s entire face turned pink, then he shook his head. “No, but I also—I—I didn’t ask her yet.”

“ _ What? _ ”

“We both knew we would end up at war at some point, decided that we’d be best waiting to get engaged after it was all over,” he explained, then he too was staring at his empty left ring finger. “I didn’t want to risk widowing her.”

A sad look bloomed on Poe’s face, then he reached across the aisle to rest a hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

“We’re all but engaged,” Ben replied, thinking back to a month prior when he’d proposed to her, and she’d turned him down for a similar reason. “We just have to fight until we win.”

“Then you can marry her?”

A nod. “Then I can marry her.”

“Damn, I’m so sorry you had to leave someone behind like that,” Finn said, then he leaned forward. “But on the other hand, you’re lucky. You’ve got someone to come home to if you survive all this.”

Poe and Ben looked at one another in confusion, then the former rested his elbow on the chair’s armrest. “What about your family?”

“All dead or I never knew them. Grew up an orphan,” Finn replied, then he laughed. “But that’s a story for another time.”

Ben shook his head. “Only if you want it to be. Given the shit we’re about to go through together, I think we can go ahead and start telling stories.”

The other man looked between the two friends, then he let out a deep breath. “I don’t have any family, and… that’s kind of it. It’s kind of a relief. No one can miss me if I’m gone.”

“We’ll be your family, then,” Ben told him, and he wasn’t sure what made him say it, but he knew it needed to be said. 

If the approval in Poe’s eyes was anything to go by, it was the right thing to say. “Yeah. When we all survive this, you’ll have people to come home to.”

Finn blinked at them for a few seconds, bewildered by the news he’d just been given. It became apparent rather quickly that he’d never heard anything remotely like this from anyone in his life, and Ben felt a determination sinking deep within his gut to rectify that. “A-are you sure?”

Of course Ben was sure. It had been a long time since he’d taken on a family that could only ever be temporary, but he knew he could do it. He’d been capable of taking countless mortals under his wing as though they were his own family, but every one of them was just a space to fill a void left by someone who had been dead for a thousand years. 

Except for Rey. 

“I’m sure. From now until we stop what’s happening, you’re my family.” He looked over at Poe, watching as his friend nodded. “And I know your father would’ve wanted me to look after you, so that includes you, too.”

“You’re not  _ that  _ much older than me,” Poe grumbled, and it took all of Ben’s strength not to scoff from the sheer irony of that statement. He was old enough to be his grandfather probably twenty times over. He’d known his father before he was even born and met him on the streets for the first time when he was just four years old. A vague part of him wondered if he remembered that, but he figured it was impossible. How would anyone recall a brief encounter at the age of four?

“Still, he knew me before he died, and he knew me well.” Ben shifted in his seat, then he cleared his throat. “I know what he would’ve wanted.”

Poe looked at him strangely for a moment, then he sat back, and nodded. “Well then, gentlemen, here’s hoping training goes well, we don’t die, and we go home… to each other.”

“To each other,” the other two repeated.

“And to Ben’s girl.” A stupidly wide grin grew on his face as he pointed at his friend. “I’m going to live to see that wedding,” he added, then the three of them erupted into a round of casual laughter as the conversation drifted to a new subject, and the entire war began to pass in a blur. 

** 1942, June  **

He couldn’t tell Rey where he was. After their training ended, he began sending her regular letters, but aside from letting her know he was in the European continent, there wasn’t a single thing he could tell her about his location. She couldn’t tell him hers either. Half their letters always came to each other with black lines marked through them by whoever read through the letters for classified information. 

Or they had water droplets on them from the time Finn and Poe had stolen his letters and taken them on a run through the rain one day before a flight drill. They’d just been hoping to catch a glimpse of Ben receiving something scandalous from her in the mail, intended it as good fun, but it made him very grateful that he was not Poe’s actual father in spite of the mentorship role he’d taken with the two men. 

Every day the three got closer and closer—well, Finn and Poe mostly got closer while Ben pined after his old life Rey in the background—and he knew it would become harder and harder to eventually lose them. Both men were promising pilots and great at being part of a flight crew depending on what the day’s work was, but training and the real thing were vastly different, and every single time they carried out raids across the English Channel he tried his best not to panic at the thought of losing his friends. 

The first time German airmen opened fire on them gave him a thorough panic attack. Flashbacks to wars past overwhelmed him, and he could sense his muscles as they locked up, rendering him completely frozen for a split second as he closed his eyes. He allowed himself to surrender to the fear for a few seconds, let it encompass and take over him, then he sprang into action, firing back to save his friends from harm. 

The skirmish was hardly anything, but it made him feel on edge as the gravity of how much worse things were going to get settled in. 

When he vaguely mentioned it to Rey in his letters, his response was met with tear smudged ink on the page. 

_ Dear Ben, _

_ I can’t lie to you, hearing the news that you’d been involved like this brought fear to my heart I haven’t felt in a long time. But I know this is how war is. It is everything from a tiny skirmish to the most brutal of fights. It is a nightmare, and… _

Something was crossed out by her hand, likely an allusion to their never-ending lifespans, and though he yearned to know what it was, he kept reading. 

_ It has been six months since the last time I saw you. I know we’ve gone far longer than this, but given the last few years, this is starting to feel like a lifetime. I want to hear your voice. I miss the way you say my name and how you sound when I first wake up in the morning. It took losing you like this for me to realize just how much I appreciated your voice, like so many other things about you.  _

Ben laughed quietly to himself as he read that part, then he looked around at the base he’d been stationed at, checking to see if anyone else was around before he kept reading. 

_ Your hair, god, I miss your hair. I miss touching it. I miss your stupid face. Your hands? Miss those too. Miss the way they hold mine, the way they touch me in ways I dare not say in a letter which anyone could read, and how you hold me in the mornings.  _

_ The bed is miserable without you. I’ve decided to get a job as a mechanic to pass the time. Maz even comes down here since she lives a few hours away in San Jose now, helps me spend the time until you come back. She’s a great friend, but she’s no you.  _

_ Long story short, please stay alive. Stay alive, and know that I am thinking of you every day.  _

_ Come home soon.  _

_ Love, _

_ Rey _

Ben held the letter close to his chest and did so until long after the lights went out that night. He didn’t sleep for even a second, he was too wired by the arrival of Rey’s letter to even consider it. 

He was too grateful that the postal system hadn’t failed them yet the way it had before. 

The very next day, he drafted up a response, and slowly the casual lettering grew in intensity. They had been longing for each other across land and sea for months now, but as June was starting to become July, he knew it was starting to come to a head. Once upon a time, they’d survived nearly two centuries without seeing each other. Doing such a thing now? He thought it might have killed him. 

_ Dear Rey, _

_ I’m thinking of you every day, too. Your laugh still haunts my dreams, and it always has. I don’t think it will ever stop, and I don’t want it to. I love you, and I miss you, and when you first told me you loved me, it started something that I don’t think will ever be over. I don’t think even death can truly bring it to an end.  _

_ We’re flying again tomorrow. By the time this letter reaches you, that time will be long past, but it feels good to tell you about it now anyway. I think that’ll be all I say on the war for now—especially since I know the man who edits these letters will probably cross out this entire paragraph anyway—because I have other, better things to write you about than bloodshed.  _

_ I’ve started wearing your locket around my neck. I think the other men might’ve started staring now that they’ve noticed, but it makes me feel proud knowing I’ve got a piece of you with me, even if it’s just that photograph of you in our home.  _

_ All I can do is hope I never lose it. I look forward to the day when I can finally put it back around your neck and slip the ring on your finger. Assuming you plan to say yes, that is. I know you refuse to answer the question until I’m home, but the thought of you wearing it has brightened several of my days… _

_ And so has the thought of how your hands feel on me as well, to refer to your earlier letter. I think about how they move often. How they run through my hair, how they move over my entire body and make me feel like I’m really, properly alive.  _

_ Before I can go on rambling about things that will cause the men checking these letters to blush, I should probably close this letter with a few brief words. Give Maz my best wishes, and know that I am thinking of you always.  _

_ Love,  _

_ Ben.  _

He sent that letter with a blush on his face. Said blush remained on his face for the near two weeks it took for her to get back to him. It felt like he was counting down the days until she reached him again, and though he was lucky to get in touch with her within weeks now, it still felt like too long. It was far too long. 

He’d been spoiled ever since he’d run into her in Chicago. 

_ Dear Ben, _

_ God, I miss that, too. I miss everything we once had, and now I only have it in dreams. I wish I could tell you all about them. I’m far too old to care whether one of your officers sees me writing down the contents of these dreams, but I would love to one day tell you just what it is I’ve been thinking of at night and do exactly that when I see you again.  _

His heart started doing flips in his chest at that paragraph, and he had to brace himself before reading the next— _ no.  _ He had to be  _ alone  _ before he read the next paragraph. Swallowing nervously, Ben looked out at the crowd of people around him retrieving their mail and made his way around the base toward the bunks. It was a rare day of downtime and he didn’t think anyone would be hanging around outside them. 

The back of the building was facing a small section of forest, and he made a beeline for it as he gripped the letter tightly in his hand. A cool breeze blew past him, warning of an upcoming rainfall. He’d have to make this letter reading quick or wait until another time, he knew. 

Ben was practically jogging as he made the last strides to where he’d be able to read the letter, but before he could reach it, he was stopped by the sound of two people talking quietly. Someone else was there, and that would have been fine so long as they stayed out of his business, but when he rounded the corner, he quickly realized that it wasn’t just an interrupted conversation. 

Finn and Poe were standing together around the corner, the former of the two leaning up against the wall with a smile on his face as the latter caressed his cheek with a similar expression. In their eyes, he could see a familiar, but brand new sense of delight and wonder starting to grow there. It was young, impossibly young, and very, very fragile, but they were entering the beginning stages of what had once gone down between himself and Rey. 

The corners of his mouth tilted upward as he prepared to take a step back, not wanting to interfere in what was the beginning of something greater than his five senses could perceive. If his friends had been able to find something with each other, they deserved to be left alone to figure it— **_ CRACK! _ **

A very small branch snapped beneath his feet, and suddenly two pairs of eyes were looking in his direction, and Finn and Poe shot apart at light speed. Terror blossomed in those eyes that had a second earlier been full of love, and neither man breathed as they stared down Ben, frightened of what he might do in response to his discovery. “Sorry,” he breathed after several seconds, then he began to back away further. “I was just trying to find a place to read my letter.” He held the paper awkwardly up in his hand, laughing nervously as he retreated. “I’ll see you guys later.”

Before he could turn around, Poe finally stumbled forward, holding up a hand in front of him as if to beg Ben not to leave. “Wait,” he said, his voice practically a whisper as he walked toward him. “Please don’t tell anyone what you saw. We’ll—you know how they treat guys like us. We’ll be crucified.”

Confusion warred within Ben, then his features softened, and he reached out to rest a hand on his friend’s arm as understanding filled him. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

“Y-you wouldn’t?”

“Never,” Ben answered, then he looked between him and Finn. “You’re in love, aren’t you? Or falling into it?”

Both Poe and Finn were staring at him as if he’d just sprouted wings and begun to fly. After a few seconds, they both turned to look at each other, equally bewildered and awestruck by what they were hearing. “I-I think we are.”

The man still leaning against the wall stepped forward, and cleared his throat as he nodded and joined his partner’s side. “Yeah, I know some might call it a sin, but–“

Ben shook his head. “It’s love, and you’re lucky to find it.” He laughed awkwardly as he stepped back, then he sighed, thinking back on the centuries before he met Rey, when he’d still been allowing mortals into his bed. “And believe it or not, I’ve been where you are. I’ve heard what people have said, I’ve seen what horrors we can wreak on each other, but… in the end, it’s always worth it.”

“So you’re not ratting us out?”

“Of course not.” Ben looked down at the letter in his hand, then up at the sky that threatened to pour rain on them at any moment. “But you may want to take it inside. I think-I think it’s about to rain.”

The two men standing before him blushed, but nodded as they took hold of one another’s hands, then Poe gave Ben a wink on his way out. “I’ll see you inside?”

“As soon as I read this letter.”

With another tiny wave, Poe and Finn made their way back into the bunks, leaving Ben alone with the impending thunderstorm. Taking in a deep breath, he finally began to unfold the letter, and his whole world began to spin as he read it. 

_ I had a dream about you last night. In it, you’d never left, and we were on the beach again, and maybe it’s a terrible idea to tell you this through a letter--one which I know people can read if it gets in the wrong hands--but how the hell are we supposed to survive these long months otherwise?  _

_ My point is, we were on the beach, and you were naked, kissing me in the sand--which is a stupid idea, we’d get sand anywhere, but dreams are another world, aren’t they? And you were removing my clothes, and  _ god _ , Ben, it felt so real. Everything you did to me felt so real... _

Ben’s eyes went wide as he began to read the letter in detail, reading over the details of the things they’d done together in her dream. His breathing grew shaky as he read on, her words making his cock hard for the first time in months as he read them, becoming so engrossed in what she was saying, in the fantasy she’d created, that he didn’t notice when the first raindrops fell. 

Once he did notice, though, Ben made a bee-line for the interior of the bunks, opting to finish reading it in there even if other soldiers were around to potentially observe him. He couldn’t worry about them right now, not when Rey was somehow managing to make him feel better than he had in months from thousands of miles away. 

So he ran into his bunk, he read the rest of the letter with a little lantern and the remaining daylight that flooded into the window. Every other man on the base was ignored until he finished reading it, then he set the letter down, and pulled out a piece of paper of his own, commencing what would become two years of hiding his letters from every man on the base as he and Rey’s communications took a turn for the sensual. 

** 1943 **

The next year was far more eventful than he wanted it to be. The war kicked off as time went on, and by the time he celebrated his first New Year’s in more than a decade without Rey, he was exhausted--mentally, at least. He was just tired of constantly being afraid all the time. 

Rey was safe on the other side of the ocean. His only worry with regards to her was whether or not he’d survive to make it home and see her again. Everything else was about keeping the men in his company safe, in particular, Finn and Poe. 

The two men had grown on him throughout their time together, reminding him distantly of the family he’d once built with Gwen and Dopheld before the plague had stolen them from him. Those deaths had broken his heart, they’d made his soul black and it had taken more than another century before he found any source of light, and he’d found that in Rey.

Still, even if he knew he could survive and move on from their potential loss, he feared it more than anything else. Finn and Poe were his family now, and he wanted them to live long lives that only ended as human life was naturally supposed to. He wanted them to grow old, to experience what it’s like to go all the way to the grave with another person in the way he never would get to. They felt like brothers to him, and so he was always excessively protective of them when they went out on flights. 

His slight over-protectiveness got to the point where even Rey picked up on it in his letters, and instead of receiving the usual racy messages from her that he was accustomed to, that week he received a scolding that he needed to calm down. She was right, and he knew she was right, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that everything was about to go horribly wrong. 

The war could’ve been going so much worse, but they’d made it through with hardly a scratch on them. It was bizarre to him how some could experience such terror overseas, and they’d made it through with hardly anything. 

It felt like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop, but the other shoe was a bomb or a chemical or some kind of nightmare weapon conjured up by someone on the opposing side that he lived in fear of every day. Some of the things he’d heard being used in this war so far? He wasn’t even sure he’d survive that. Human beings were coming up with newer and crueler ways of torture by the day, and one day he was confident they’d find something that could kill even him. 

It was only a matter of time. 

** 1944 **

1943 went by in a blur, but as the tide of the war began to change, 1944 came in at an agonizingly slow pace. Ben’s fear that something was going to go awry at any second became very, frighteningly real, and it reflected in his letters to Rey. They took a turn from the sexual to fearful, each one ending with an  _ “I love you, _ ” as if it would be the last time he ever wrote them. 

Life was in a constant state of static. It was the sort of static that built up right before a lightning strike, right before the very same thing that had rendered him immortal. He’d been struck by lightning since he’d lost his ability to die, but now he wondered if it would take something more powerful to kill him. 

He wondered if it would take something crafted by the hand of man to kill him. 

Eventually, his worrying must have become obvious to Finn and Poe, and one fateful night in late June, they talked to him about it over their evening meal. It had felt like he was being grilled; like he was being tortured for information even though his friends meant well. They’d taken the conversation outside so their fellow men wouldn’t have to hear them yell or scream about anything, but Ben still knew the pressure was too much. 

He had to explain why he was acting so weird to them, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could do it. If there was ever anyone he could trust, it was Finn and Poe, and so that night as they were falling asleep in their bunks, he told them everything. 

His long life story spilled out of him effortlessly, but it wasn’t easy. Getting Finn in particular to believe him was a challenge, but Poe believed him in seconds, and it didn’t take long for him to figure out why. 

“When I was four years old, my dad took my mom and me to New York,” he explained, light from the fire they’d gathered around flickering on his softening features as Ben froze, his entire body growing tense as he recalled in vivid detail the reason he’d had to leave Rey behind in 1922. “We ran into a friend of his, and I was so young, I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but in hindsight…” he looked his friend up and down again, as if confirming something before he spoke again, “He said his name was Ben, and he looked an awful lot like you. And you said you knew my dad, but you can’t be more than four years older than me.”

Swallowing nervously, he gave his friend a nod. “That was me. It was 1922, and I thought I’d never see your father again, so I assumed I was safe, but then he showed up in my life that night, with you and your mom in tow, and I knew I wasn’t.”

“You really are immortal,” Finn breathed, and Ben watched his head fall into his hands. “God that explains so much.” He glanced between the other two men, then he rested a hand on the bench beneath him, watching as the fire crackled onward into the night. “You’re always throwing yourself in harm’s way even when we ask you not to, and it’s not because you’re trying to sacrifice yourself, it’s because you know nothing bad will happen to you.”

Ben nodded slowly. “Yes, so please…” he glanced between the two men cautiously. “If something goes wrong out there, let me handle it. I’ll be the decoy so you can escape. No matter how much it hurts, I need you to promise me that you’ll trust me to find my way back to you.”

“Okay,” Poe said, not even hesitating for a second. “I trust you.”

“Me too,” Finn replied, then he reached over, and took his partner’s hand. “You could’ve ratted us out, and you didn’t, and I’ve gotten two of the happiest years of my life.”

Ben let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, and gave them both a nod. “Thank you. Both of you.”

They fell quiet for a moment, listening to the crackling of the fire as the night passed them by, the sense of foreboding only growing stronger as time passed. It felt so intense that Ben was almost certain whatever danger was approaching was actually upon them, or would be in seconds, but nothing happened. 

Whatever it was was so enormous in magnitude, he could feel it coming from a mile away, and he was going to be utterly helpless to stop it. 

Lightning finally struck that September. He was flying with Finn and Poe over the French countryside—swearing he could see where he and Rey once lived together during the plague—when they started to take on fire. He’d promised the other two he’d look after them, and so when Ben dove off course, taking his plane out of formation and down closer to the ground and the German airmen followed him, they kept flying forward. 

It took all his strength not to listen to the voices of his best friends on the radio begging him to come back. In terms of the hardest things he’d ever done in his life, that one was up there as number one. Easily. Their voices were so full of anguish, so full of grief, that Ben almost broke in his resolve, but he knew what he had to do. 

He swung the plane around, opening fire on his assailants as he fought back against everything they threw at him. As they played a game of chicken, Ben could feel his plane and see his enemies’ taking on fire. The whole machine shuddered violently, and a smell entered the cockpit one never wanted to experience when thousands of feet in the air. 

The smell of smoke. 

Fire had never been a problem for him. He’d never been in a situation where he’d had to find out if he could survive being blown up or burnt so quickly his regenerative body failed him, and suddenly he became very, very aware that his long life might’ve ended right there. It might have ended in the middle of the French countryside, thousands of miles from the woman he loved, in just a few seconds at the hands of a powerful war machine. There would be no glory, no victory, only death, and it would be  _ his  _ death. 

Still, he fired upon the planes as he flew by them, both parties turning to regroup, and come back for another joust. One of the planes tailing him turned around, heading off in the direction that Finn and Poe had flown, and Ben’s heart raced as he found himself distracted for a fatal split second that changed the course of the battle. 

He turned just a second too late, and the other pilot began to fire on him before he could fire on them, but he wasn’t done, he was going to go down fighting. It was the least he could do after all he’d been through trying to save his friends—trying to get back to  _ Rey.  _ So he fired on his enemy, firing until he saw smoke blossom from one of his engines, and both men regrouped for one last round in their battered, beaten aircraft. 

But that last round never quite kicked off. Both of them were too damaged, too wounded to make their turns, and so they tilted off away from each other, both planes steadily losing altitude with no airbase or source of safety in sight. They were going down, and after eleven hundred years of life, Ben was going to die. 

The longest awaited death in all of history was at hand, and he could smell it as tendrils of gray-black smoke began to wisp into his cockpit.  _ Fuck.  _ He was going to die, and if the fall didn’t kill him, the gasoline igniting in his tank surely would. There was no way he would survive such a th—

**_ BOOM! _ **

An explosion sounded to his right, and suddenly the plane careened violently in that direction, causing him to gasp as the wind was knocked from his lungs, and the world through his window began to blur. Blue, green, vibrant sunshine, and black smoke entered his vision, and no matter what he did with his controls, the plane continued to steadily go down and down and down. 

His fate was sealed. All he could do was accept it. The cockpit was growing hot, and suddenly he could see the orange and yellow of flames that licked at the glass that was cracking to its breaking point with every passing second. It was closing in around him, and as he looked back, he could see flames bursting through the hull of his plane. He was screwed, royally screwed, but still, he didn’t want to give up, he didn’t want to stop fighting. 

He had a life to get back to, he couldn’t leave Rey behind to face eternity alone. He couldn’t. 

With the fire, ejecting from his seat was going to be difficult, but he didn’t have a choice. He could survive being burnt, he could, and he could survive a long fall. It would hurt like hell, it would be the most painful agony he’d ever put himself through, but he could do it, couldn’t he?

Several coughs left his lungs as he thought through his plan, making sure his seat straps were on tight before he retrieved Rey’s locket from around his neck. He had to see her one last time before he potentially died, before he never got the chance to ever again, and so he took it from around his neck, opened it, and gazed upon the sensual image of the love of his life as she stared at him from a day that had long since past. His thumb ran over the smooth glass protecting the image, and he sniffled quietly as he conjured thoughts of her to his mind. 

Every happy memory he had with Rey rushed in front of him like a film reel, it was as if his entire life was flashing before his eyes, but it was only the happy parts. Her laugh, her smile, the feeling of her warmth against his, and the way she looked at him with more love and adoration than he’d ever thought he’d see flooded his senses. Hope rushed through his veins as he was given one final push of courage, one final attempt to try and live, to survive this war. 

Courage finding him at last, Ben put the locket back securely around his neck and closed his eyes as he prepared to eject from the cockpit. He could do this, he could do this—

The world became a blur of light and dark, and sheer violence threatened to tear him apart as he soared high into the sky above the flaming jet, but he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t see anything, all he could see was flames and if it was possible, he felt like he could see his agony. 

It was the rawest, intense pain he’d ever been in, and his eyes clamped shut as he buried his head in his hands, feeling as though he were being eaten alive by the most gruesome of creatures. At some point, he’d started screaming, but just when that was he wasn’t sure, all he could feel was burning, searing hot pain.

A part of him recalled how it had felt to have Rey rip him apart to retrieve the bullet from his body, and how he’d thought that was the worst thing he’d ever experienced. This was quickly replacing that, quickly making him realize there were so many more ways for a person to become torn to shreds by the pain they were in. Back in the nineteenth century, he promised her he’d never put himself through such a thing again, and now he could feel himself sobbing vaguely both from the agony and from how he’d broken that promise. 

_ I’m sorry, Rey,  _ he thought to himself.  _ I’m so sorry. _

The sensation of falling then took over the feeling of pain, and while parts of him were still burning, it wasn’t as overwhelmingly intense. At that point, though, it was too late. He had been rendered into a state not unlike that of a vegetable by the pain he was in. All he knew was that he was falling, and he was falling fast. His limbs fell limp, and he thought he was floating for a second even as he started to see the ground growing closer. His vision was just swimming so badly, his senses so confused by the violence his body had been subjected to, that he couldn’t comprehend what was happening. 

He couldn’t even comprehend it as the ground was suddenly upon him, all he thought was how it was funny his parachute hadn’t deployed, and then the world went black. His senses cut off entirely. Everything was numb. 

_ Lights out.  _

** 1945 **

After the crash, Ben came to in the middle of the woods to find his clothing blood and sweat-stained and ripped to shreds so badly it was rendered almost useless. The pain was gone, and going by the smoldering wreck behind him, he’d only been out for a few minutes.

It hit him then that he was  _ alive _ . Somehow, in spite of impossible odds and a fire that should’ve killed him, Ben was still kicking. He was still breathing, and that meant he could reunite with Finn and Poe somewhere, he could finish off the rest of the war, and he could go home and marry Rey. 

All he had to do was get back to base first, and that took him another two weeks. 

By the time he got back, he’d been reported missing in action, and according to his friends, the news had traveled to the woman he loved. Panic set in for a few seconds, but he began writing her a letter immediately, not holding back anything as he assured her that he was alive and safe, and not at all dead like he knew she was fearing. 

After that, the months passed in a blur. Ben’s accident got put behind him for the time being—if he let himself think too much on the near-death experience, it and all the other memories similar to it would break him. He couldn’t be broken if he wanted to get home in one piece, so he pushed on, getting through the days one by one until things finally felt like they were taking a turn for the better. 

The victory came amid another bout of sensual letters between himself and Rey, and he was in the middle of writing up his reply when cheers roared around, and he knew in an instant the storm had been lifted. Celebrations lasted for what felt like days, and Ben’s letter wound up having a vastly different ending than he’d originally intended, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t mind. 

His letter carried the news that he’d be coming home after all. 

Once celebrations had simmered down, though, he was left with an astonishing dose of reality. Now he was going to go home, he was going to wrap Rey in his arms, and kiss her until she couldn’t breathe, and he was going to get down on one knee and propose to her like he should’ve done five years earlier. All that was left for him to do was figure out how exactly to pop the question. 

He figured it out one day close to dinner when he, Finn, and Poe were taking a stroll down the beach outside of some very familiar-looking cliffs. If he closed his eyes, beneath the sound of the waves he could hear the sound of his and Rey’s swords as they clashed violently seven hundred years in the past, could hear the sound of their grunting and his begging for her to understand, and he felt like he was taken back to the beginning. He’d been so young back then, only about four hundred years old, and he hadn’t quite known about all the wonders that awaited him. 

His past with Rey had started on the island whose sand he was now kicking up with his feet as his friends ran gleefully away from the waves, and if he was going to proceed with their future, he needed to honor it. Their history needed to be recognized, they needed to remember where they’d come from after all they’d been through, and when he proposed to her, he wanted to have as many pieces of it present as possible. 

“What’s on your mind, Ben?” Poe asked suddenly, pulling him from the memory of waves and blood in the sand. 

“I was thinking about my proposal to Rey,” he replied, feeling his cheeks flush as his friends began to chuckle. “There’s something I have to do before I go back, and I may need your help doing it.”

The two men looked at one another, then shared a nod as Finn reached for Poe’s hand, and grinned. “We might as well. They’re not letting us go home just yet. Can’t spare the ships.”

“Yeah. We’re all going back to California anyway, we can just catch a ride together,” Poe said in agreement, then he reached around Finn, and patted Ben’s shoulder. “So what are you thinking, Solo?”

The three of them stopped walking, then he looked out toward the ocean he and Rey had shared their second battle in one last time and took in a deep breath before he told them everything he was planning. Then slowly, throughout one glorious, overcast afternoon, the world’s longest awaited proposal was finally in progress.

All he had to do was complete his mission, and get home to Rey. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of the angst is nigh! we're beginning to bring things to a close, and as emotional as I'll be when I finish this fic, I'll also be grateful to be done :D


End file.
